The
head of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) has urged employers not to exclude fathers from family-friendly
policies.
The
EOC’s chair Julie Mellor said firms must not ignore the needs of fathers if the
business community were serious about improving the lives of British families.
Mellor
was speaking after launching a new EOC factsheet for employers on how to deal
with working fathers.
She
said: "It can be particularly difficult if you are a dad to ask to change
your hours so you can pick up the children from school or leave early to see a
school play. Now that both parents work in many households, fathers often play
a bigger role in looking after their children, yet find it difficult to break
away from the long-hours culture inherent in many organisations."
As
well as supporting a small number of individual cases each year, the EOC wants
to raise awareness of the changing role of fathers and is currently looking at
what working practices need to change.
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By Ross Wigham
