Family-friendly working
Employees have a number of fundamental family-friendly rights in the workplace. These include the right to maternity leave, paternity leave, and adoption leave. Shared parental leave is available to parents of children due on or after 5 April 2015, and adopters where the child is placed for adoption on or after 5 April 2015. Ordinary parental leave is a type of unpaid leave that can be taken until the child’s 18th birthday.
From 30 June 2015, the right to request flexible working was extended to all employees with 26 weeks’ qualifying service. Prior to this date, it was available to parents of young children and carers. All employees are also entitled to take a reasonable amount of time off work “to take action which is necessary” in relation to the care of certain dependants.
Three in five parents work unpaid overtime to cope with workload
Flexible working is unable to deliver the work-life balance that parents need, according to a report that finds three in...
The 10 most important employment law cases in 2019
We round up the most significant cases of the year including legal judgments on CCTV, restrictive covenants, enhancing shared parental leave, collective bargaining and more...
Shorter City trading day would ‘boost diversity and work-life balance’
Equity market opening hours should be shortened by 90 minutes to allow the trading sector to attract and retain a...
Standard Life Aberdeen offers nine months’ fully paid leave for all new parents
Standard Life Aberdeen will offer nine months’ fully paid leave from January.
How can HR re-energise the diversity agenda?
Having a diverse and inclusive workforce is recognised as good for business, but why are many organisations barely going beyond compliance with equality legislation?
Consultation closes with huge support for family friendly transparency
As the government consultation into whether employers should have to publish their family-related leave and flexible working policies comes to...
Why meeting flexible working requests is easier said than done
With Labour proposing a four-day week and unions campaigning for workers to use technology to spend less time in the...
Sandwich carers struggling to balance work and home
More than half of ‘sandwich carers’ – people who look after both children and older relatives – find balancing their...
Met Police to discuss retention of women at Employee Benefits Live
Rachel Billington (right), HR diversity and inclusion lead at the Metropolitan Police, will share her organisation’s journey around improving the...
Teacher overlooked for promotion because she worked part time
A teacher who was overlooked for a promotion because she was working reduced hours has received a £5,000 pay out...
Employers should have to ‘opt out’ of offering flexible working, says MP
Flexible working should be offered by default for any job and employers should “opt out” if a job cannot be...
Social attitudes: One in three say parental leave should be shared
A third of people believe parental leave should be shared equally, according to a major survey, while only 12% think...
Roadmap encourages employers to tackle ‘lifetime’ gender inequality
Action needs to be taken by individual organisations and at a sector-wide level to close the gender pay gap and...
MP seeks to rescue new mums’ redundancy protection plans
The government is accused of dragging its feet over protections for new mothers as a private member's bill is introduced in the House of Commons...
O2 increases paid paternity leave to 14 weeks
Mobile network O2 has increased paid paternity leave for all permanent staff to 14 weeks, which it claimed is among...
