Available on-demand – recorded 25 February 2025
As we progress into 2025, leading employers are looking to make their employee experience the most competitive it can be. They are also navigating a landscape of budget controls. Could family-friendly benefits be the key to unlocking both engagement and cost savings?
The latest research from Bright Horizons, released in January 2025, reveals clear and compelling trends. Among 3,000 randomly selected UK working parents and carers, there is high stress, coupled with a perception that employers care less about family than they did immediately after the pandemic. Employees with family responsibilities experience frequent care breakdowns and – without other options – they turn to short-notice annual leave or even sick leave as cover.
All this is costly for employers in talent retention, productivity, wellbeing and career progression.
On the positive side, the findings reveal the best support to encourage and empower office presence and the value of providing support for adult dependants – and even pets – as well as childcare. There are actionable insights for better gender representation in the research too: women find it harder to progress their careers while working flexibly than men do and fathers find their work affected by care breakdowns at least as often as mothers.
This Personnel Today webinar, in association with Bright Horizons, lifts the lid on the key trends among working parents and carers and looks in detail at how employers and line managers can respond and remove the barriers for these employees.
Personnel Today editor Rob Moss is joined by Jennifer Liston-Smith, head of thought leadership at Bright Horizons, and Tom Hill, HR business partner at the law firm Hill Dickinson.
Watch now to:
- Learn evidence-based insights into what working parents and carers need and how they define an employer of choice.
- Understand how the tide has turned since the post-pandemic focus on family life and the critical choices we have in 2025 to protect employee wellbeing.
- Know in detail the business case for family support and why it matters.
- Take action with practical tips to retain your talented workforce, fuel their productivity and support their wellbeing.
This free 45 to 60-minute webinar will include a live audience Q&A session.
Watch the webinar on-demand now
About our speakers
Jennifer Liston-Smith is head of thought leadership at Bright Horizons. She set up and for a decade led the coaching and consultancy side of what became Bright Horizons Work and Family Solutions, advising employers on programmes for working parents and carers and evaluating their impact and ROI, as well as developing coaches and coaching capability. Jennifer now focuses on identifying overarching trends through research and through advising employers and translating these insights into solutions and practical actions.
Tom Hill is an HR business partner at the law firm Hill Dickinson, where he has been for more than eight years since starting as an apprentice in 2016. His role is extremely varied, primarily focusing on leading our employee relations team. Our journey as a firm is one that I am proud of, and we have progressed from outside of the Top 30 in the annual benchmark to being recognised as a Top 10 Employer in 2024.
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