Three-quarters of small businesses in UK offer flexible work options for parents

It’s not difficult to see how modern working practices put a strain on family relationships, but at least nearly three-quarters of small and medium-sized businesses in the UK are attempting to make things easier for parents by offering more flexible working options.

Over half of working mums said they’d want to work away from the office, while nearly nine in ten dads said the same.

Dads said that flexible working would make the most positive difference to their family life in the first year after their child’s birth.

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Over three-quarters of mums struggling to balance work-life balance over Christmas

Yet more research which shows that British mums are struggling to achieve everything that they need to at work and home this Christmastime. 78% said they were feeling the strain.

The Citrix-sponsored survey found that the biggest thing mums believe would help them the most was flexible working options, such as negotiable working hours (39%), or home working (40%).

On an encouraging note, the survey suggests that employers are being sympathetic to the needs of working mums, with three out of four requests to work part time and work more flexible hours being granted. In addition, almost half of employers (48%) have accommodated requests from working mums to work from home.

Denise Tyler, editor of Mother@Work, a monthly webzine dedicated to working mothers, said, “Flexible working options can go a long way to helping mums cope with the stress of balancing work and home life. Parents with children under six have a legal right to request flexible work and it is extremely encouraging to see that so many requests for part time, flexi hours and home working are being accommodated by employers.””

Modern working practices strain family relationships, particularly women’s

A new piece of research has discovered something that many busy mums and dads are already all too well aware of.

Modern “human resource management practices” — or in other words, how employees are expected to work, what monitoring systems are in place, and how they perceive their jobs — are placing a significant strain on family relationships. And it’s particularly bad for women.

The strain on relationships has been measured as equivalent to working an extra 120 hours a year. That’s over two hours extra per week.

Employers are finding new ways of attempting to increase productivity, such as team-based forms of work, performance-related pay, individual development, and automated surveillance of how much employees work.

Strain is particularly high in more administrative roles, where monitoring is the standard, such as in call centres.

Both men and women may become anxious about childcare arrangements when they’re under pressure at work, but women are less likely to get help at home from a male partner if the men are under work pressure.

“Computers and IT systems are bringing surveillance to most workplaces. Now for the first time we can see how this development is damaging employees’ well-being,” said Michael White, who co-directed the research study.

(Via NewKerala.Com)

New UK maternity legislation discourages business from employing women

New research by the software company Citrix Online suggests that over half of the employers surveyed believe new maternity legislation introduced in Britain on 1st April this year is making some managers think twice about recruiting women.

34% of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) were unaware of the new legislation, which includes the extension of statutory maternity pay from 6 to 9 months, and the removal of qualifying criteria so that all mothers are entitled to 12 months of maternity leave.

30% of employers surveyed thought that it would be harder to retain talented women in the workforce, while 26% thought the latest changes would have a commercially negative impact.

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