via The Work Founation News by Karen Steadman
Reports over the weekend about the extent of discrimination facing women who return to work after taking maternity leave, highlight a continuing issue in the UK both in terms of equality and the economy.
Results from a poll of a thousand working women across the UK indicated that one in seven had lost their job while on maternity leave. Forty per cent reported that their jobs had changed by the time they returned, with half reporting a cut in hours or demotion. More than a tenth had been replaced in their jobs by the person who had covered their maternity leave.
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Showing posts with label maternity_leave. Show all posts
Showing posts with label maternity_leave. Show all posts
Wednesday, 13 March 2013
Monday, 25 February 2013
Returning to Work After Maternity Leave: Childcare and Workplace Flexibility
an article by Margaret J Nowak and Marita Naude Gail (Thomas Curtin University, Australia) published in The Journal of Industrial Relations Volume 55 Number 1 (February 2013)
Abstract
This article explores how responsibilities for childcare are managed as part of family decisions made around the return to work following a period of maternity leave.
We surveyed all women health professionals identified as on maternity leave on payroll records of the Health Department, Western Australia, and one private sector national provider of hospital services.
Survey questions were designed following a review of the literature and prior empirical work. The design enabled us to collect both quantitative information and interpretive qualitative responses from participants.
Over 50% of respondents expected to have childcare provided wholly by family members, while 15% anticipated the use of formal arrangements alone.
The planned arrangements for care can best be understood within a framework of a ‘family budget’ of time to be allocated between market-based work and childcare.
Attitudes to childcare are central to this ‘time economies’ framework.
Respondents experienced dissonance between the stated organizational family-friendly policy of their workplaces and practices at the management level. Employer-centred flexibility often disrupted their child-care arrangements.
We identify important employment policy issues for workplaces that would facilitate the optimal return to the workforce by professional women following maternity leave.
Hazel’s comment:
Oh yes, the difference between what the Employee Handbook says will happen and what your line manager actually agrees to can be immense!
Abstract
This article explores how responsibilities for childcare are managed as part of family decisions made around the return to work following a period of maternity leave.
We surveyed all women health professionals identified as on maternity leave on payroll records of the Health Department, Western Australia, and one private sector national provider of hospital services.
Survey questions were designed following a review of the literature and prior empirical work. The design enabled us to collect both quantitative information and interpretive qualitative responses from participants.
Over 50% of respondents expected to have childcare provided wholly by family members, while 15% anticipated the use of formal arrangements alone.
The planned arrangements for care can best be understood within a framework of a ‘family budget’ of time to be allocated between market-based work and childcare.
Attitudes to childcare are central to this ‘time economies’ framework.
Respondents experienced dissonance between the stated organizational family-friendly policy of their workplaces and practices at the management level. Employer-centred flexibility often disrupted their child-care arrangements.
We identify important employment policy issues for workplaces that would facilitate the optimal return to the workforce by professional women following maternity leave.
Hazel’s comment:
Oh yes, the difference between what the Employee Handbook says will happen and what your line manager actually agrees to can be immense!
Tuesday, 13 November 2012
Family Friendly or Failing Families?
A Family Lives highlight report on progress towards implementing flexible working practices for all families
Executive summary
Introduction
Over the last decade, flexible working has been increasingly seen as an important tool for individuals to help balance work and family life. Successive governments have introduced rights to flexible working and the Coalition government is looking to increase worker rights through its Modern Workplaces agenda. 1 Currently, the majority of parents have the legal right to request flexible working and some employers have introduced extensive flexible work policies for their staff. For forward thinking employers, offering a comprehensive flexible working package is not just seen as a benefit purely for parents, but rather about engendering good business practice which supports all workers: promoting well-being, a good work atmosphere and facilitating improved efficiency, retention and performance as well as potential office overheads savings.
Flexible working for families today: laudable aims and stark realities
Recent government figures show that flexible working has become near universal in UK workplaces - with over 95% of workplaces offering at least one flexible working practice – hence it would be easy to assume that the picture of work-life balance for the UK’s families looks quite rosy. Scratch a little deeper however, and you will find that many employees will paint a very different image. Flexible working is still extremely difficult to obtain across a range of workplaces. Reconciling work and family life remains a clear challenge for a number of families; for some parents it even means making tough choices about whether to exit work all-together and this will have significant implications for their families.
Where are we now?
There is long way to go before all families have the opportunity to participate in the workplace in a way that meets both employers’ and families’ needs. This report looks at recent progress towards getting the family work/life balance right and makes an assessment of the outstanding challenges ahead. Through detailed case study research, this report finds that while many businesses claim to be both family friendly and pro-flexible working, there is a clear disparity between aims and implementation. Workplace culture and management practice remains fixed on a 9-5 model (or longer hours) and most employers continue to consider flexible working cases on an inconsistent, ad-hoc basis rather than implementing a pro-active, strategic approach to adapt working practices.
Key Findings and Recommendations
On the basis of our case study research, analysis of current flexible working policies and the recent proposals being developed by the department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), this report presents a number of recommendations for both employers and policy makers with a view to improving families’ work-life balance through implementing innovative approaches to managing flexible work and by improving policy and practice.
Executive summary
Introduction
Over the last decade, flexible working has been increasingly seen as an important tool for individuals to help balance work and family life. Successive governments have introduced rights to flexible working and the Coalition government is looking to increase worker rights through its Modern Workplaces agenda. 1 Currently, the majority of parents have the legal right to request flexible working and some employers have introduced extensive flexible work policies for their staff. For forward thinking employers, offering a comprehensive flexible working package is not just seen as a benefit purely for parents, but rather about engendering good business practice which supports all workers: promoting well-being, a good work atmosphere and facilitating improved efficiency, retention and performance as well as potential office overheads savings.
Flexible working for families today: laudable aims and stark realities
Recent government figures show that flexible working has become near universal in UK workplaces - with over 95% of workplaces offering at least one flexible working practice – hence it would be easy to assume that the picture of work-life balance for the UK’s families looks quite rosy. Scratch a little deeper however, and you will find that many employees will paint a very different image. Flexible working is still extremely difficult to obtain across a range of workplaces. Reconciling work and family life remains a clear challenge for a number of families; for some parents it even means making tough choices about whether to exit work all-together and this will have significant implications for their families.
Where are we now?
There is long way to go before all families have the opportunity to participate in the workplace in a way that meets both employers’ and families’ needs. This report looks at recent progress towards getting the family work/life balance right and makes an assessment of the outstanding challenges ahead. Through detailed case study research, this report finds that while many businesses claim to be both family friendly and pro-flexible working, there is a clear disparity between aims and implementation. Workplace culture and management practice remains fixed on a 9-5 model (or longer hours) and most employers continue to consider flexible working cases on an inconsistent, ad-hoc basis rather than implementing a pro-active, strategic approach to adapt working practices.
Key Findings and Recommendations
On the basis of our case study research, analysis of current flexible working policies and the recent proposals being developed by the department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), this report presents a number of recommendations for both employers and policy makers with a view to improving families’ work-life balance through implementing innovative approaches to managing flexible work and by improving policy and practice.
- Flexible working needs to become normalised in all workplaces. We urge the government to progress the key proposal in the Modern Workplaces agenda to extend the ‘right to request’ to all employees. For a number of our case studies, flexible working continues to be viewed as a parental annoyance reserved for some mothers. Whilst this perception remains, parents requesting flexible working will continue to be discriminated against in the workplace and not be able to reconcile home and work life in a way that meets their needs. For all employers there is a clear business case for promoting flexible working for all employees: flexible working reduces business costs by bringing down staff stress levels, reducing absences and can improve staff retention rates.
- The government should strengthen and refine the statutory ‘right to request’ with a view to making the process more adaptable to family needs. We urge the government to allow employees to make a second flexible working request within a year and promote the use of flexible working trial periods. For a number of our case study examples, there is not enough awareness about the purpose and use of flexible working trials. In these cases, this directs employers to move to refuse a request in order to comply with statutory time periods. Using more flexible working trials will allow businesses and employees time to adapt to a new working framework and should be encouraged.
- The government should look to support flexible working through proposals in the Modern Workplaces agenda to increase flexibility in taking maternity, paternity and parental leaves. Allowing some element of a phased return to work can ease the transition between full time leave and returning to work. For some employees and employers this period could serve as an informal trial of flexible working.
- Workplaces must become more proactive rather than reactive in dealing with flexible working requests. Businesses need to integrate flexible working into their forward planning, job design and proactively train staff to manage flexible working employees. Human Resource professionals should develop extensive support structures to manage flexible working practices and show how managers can develop, monitor and motivate their flexible working staff.
- Workplaces should look at new information technologies which promote mobile and remote working, many of which can be implemented at low or no additional cost. In today’s high competitive and globalised economy, remote access and mobile technologies can significantly improve working productivity and are integral to providing a seamless customer service with limited staff capacity. Savings made through reduced fixed office costs could offset any technological investment needed.
Thursday, 30 August 2012
Trends and social divisions in maternal employment patterns following matern...
an article by Colette Fagan and Helen Norman (University of Manchester) published in International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy Volume 32 Issue 9/10 (2012)
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the social divisions in maternal employment patterns post-childbirth, recorded by earlier studies, have persisted for a later cohort of mothers that had a pregnancy in the early 2000s, in the context of an expansion of childcare and other improvements in reconciliation measures.
Design/methodology/approach
Longitudinal data from the UK’s Millennium Cohort Study are analysed using logistic regression.
Findings
It was found that mothers are more likely to be employed, and employed full-time, when their child is aged three if they were employed during the pregnancy and resumed employment within nine months of the birth. The mothers’ occupational class, ethnicity, household composition and the working hours of a partner also have independent associations with the probability of maternal employment once the child is aged three.
Research limitations/implications
The authors would expect these results to be modified – but not overturned – in a different national setting, for example where childcare services are more extensive or part-time employment is less common.
Originality/value
These new longitudinal survey results for a recent cohort of mothers in the UK demonstrate that resumption of employment following maternity leave is pivotal for women’s subsequent employment integration. Yet maternal employment trajectories remain shaped by social inequalities. Both results are important for informing debates about reconciliation policy for the pre-school years, including monitoring the impact of the recession on the employment integration of women following childbirth.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the social divisions in maternal employment patterns post-childbirth, recorded by earlier studies, have persisted for a later cohort of mothers that had a pregnancy in the early 2000s, in the context of an expansion of childcare and other improvements in reconciliation measures.
Design/methodology/approach
Longitudinal data from the UK’s Millennium Cohort Study are analysed using logistic regression.
Findings
It was found that mothers are more likely to be employed, and employed full-time, when their child is aged three if they were employed during the pregnancy and resumed employment within nine months of the birth. The mothers’ occupational class, ethnicity, household composition and the working hours of a partner also have independent associations with the probability of maternal employment once the child is aged three.
Research limitations/implications
The authors would expect these results to be modified – but not overturned – in a different national setting, for example where childcare services are more extensive or part-time employment is less common.
Originality/value
These new longitudinal survey results for a recent cohort of mothers in the UK demonstrate that resumption of employment following maternity leave is pivotal for women’s subsequent employment integration. Yet maternal employment trajectories remain shaped by social inequalities. Both results are important for informing debates about reconciliation policy for the pre-school years, including monitoring the impact of the recession on the employment integration of women following childbirth.
Monday, 23 April 2012
Social support reciprocity and occupational self-efficacy beliefs during mothers’ organizational re-entry
an article by Dalit Jaeckel and Ulrich Orth (University of Basel, Switzerland), Christine P. Seiger (University of Zurich, Switzerland) and Bettina S. Wiese (University of Basel, University of Zurich and RWTH Aachen University, Germany) published in Journal of Vocational Behavior Volume 80 Issue 2 (April 2012)
Abstract
The present study assesses the effects of a lack of social support reciprocity at work on employees’ occupational self-efficacy beliefs.
We assume that the self-efficacy effects of received support and support reciprocity depend on the specific work context (e.g., phase in the process of organizational socialization). 297 women who returned to work after maternity leave participated at three measurement points (five weeks, eleven weeks, six months after re-entry).
We measured self-reported received and provided support as well as occupational self-efficacy beliefs.
Women who received a high amount but provided only little support at work (over-benefiting) reported lowered self-efficacy beliefs. As expected, this effect was not found at the beginning of re-entry, but only later, when over-benefiting began to be negatively related to recipients’ self-efficacy beliefs.
Abstract
The present study assesses the effects of a lack of social support reciprocity at work on employees’ occupational self-efficacy beliefs.
We assume that the self-efficacy effects of received support and support reciprocity depend on the specific work context (e.g., phase in the process of organizational socialization). 297 women who returned to work after maternity leave participated at three measurement points (five weeks, eleven weeks, six months after re-entry).
We measured self-reported received and provided support as well as occupational self-efficacy beliefs.
Women who received a high amount but provided only little support at work (over-benefiting) reported lowered self-efficacy beliefs. As expected, this effect was not found at the beginning of re-entry, but only later, when over-benefiting began to be negatively related to recipients’ self-efficacy beliefs.
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