Atkins, Deloitte and The Berkeley Partnership top employers for working mums
A jobs website for working mothers in Britain has released a list of top employers for working mums. Around 20 organisations have been lauded for the flourishing programmes they have aimed at supporting those who have taken a career break back into work, with Deloitte, Atkins and London-based consultancy The Berkeley Partnership the leaders from the consulting industry.
Workingmums.co.uk was founded by senior communications manager Gillian Nissim in 2006 after the birth of her second child. She found herself and many of her friends in a similar position, needing flexible yet challenging work, but not being able to find it. Since then, the employment site has boomed to host a database of over 320,000 candidates and works with thousands of employers from large corporates to micro companies.
While things have progressed in terms of flexible working, particularly in the consulting sector, with firms increasingly leveraging returnships and work-from-home schemes to enable women to balance their careers with starting a family, many women still face major hurdles in this regard. Inflexible UK employers see working mothers lose £1.3 trillion in earnings annually. 54% of respondents to a recent survey had left or changed jobs because of family commitments – often wasting their previous educational achievements as a result. 75% of the women surveyed had been to university, and around one third of these said a degree qualification had in no way applied to the job they obtained since becoming mothers.
In this environment, Workingmums.co.uk shortlists UK companies for its Top Employer Awards, in order to highlight leaders in the field, and point others toward their best practices. The annual awards see a jury praising firms for being the most progressive UK employers in their flexible working practices, particularly for working parents. This year, the nominations saw three consulting firms commended for their role in accommodating working mothers.
In a new category for 2018, the firm found to be ‘Best for Returners’ will be recognised for its stand-out programmes or initiatives aimed at returners – those who have taken a career break and are looking to get back into the workplace. The award itself is backed by the Government Equalities Office, and saw Deloitte, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, UBS, Morgan Sindall Construction and Infrastructure, FDM Group and Lloyds Banking Group shortlisted. Deloitte was also recently named a top employer for social mobility in the UK.
The SME Award is a prize for small companies who demonstrate a real commitment to work-life balance practices which specifically help working parents, such as flexible working, support on return to work from maternity leave and career development for women. The award sees London-headquartered firm The Berkeley Partnership go up against BetterPoints, Cuttsy + Cuttsy, Parental Choice, MUTU System Limited, Radioactive PR, Currency UK, Known Four, Blueprint and The Chartered Insurance Institute for the gong. Founded in 1990, The Berkeley Partnership is an independent management consultancy, which works with clients to develop strategies and transform their business.
The award for Innovation in Flexible Working is handed to an employer which demonstrates specific policies and practices related to flexible working which are truly innovative and break new ground, whether that be in a particular industry or in general. This year, engineering consultancy Atkins has been nominated alongside the Civil Service Human Resources division. Atkins, which was acquired by Canadian firm SNC-Lavalin Group in 2017, offers staff a variety of innovative employment variants, including part-time working, job sharing, mobile working/teleworking, phased retirement and home working, for employees who wish to change their pattern of working hours to concentrate on a particular piece of work or when they need to balance domestic and work commitments.
