Hi, today it’s the king of hearts, the last of our employee relations top tips from our 52 top tips for employers. Today’s topic is family friendly policies. 

A full set of policies around maternity, paternity, adoption leave and pay need to be developed so that employees feel valued and their skills are not lost from the business, but so that the business is able to function effectively with both short term and long term absence as a result of a prospective or actual birth of a baby. The law provides for statutory time off and pay, but companies can provide more and structure things differently. 

There are lots of different elements to a family friendly policy. Not only around the birth of a child, but also around shared parental leave and parental leave. It’s really important that employers respect the time that a parent within the business needs to look after a child or a number of children at home. But equally, that doesn’t mean that as an employer you have to roll over and give a parent exactly what they want and what they need. 

It’s really important that you think about what you need your policies to do, what you can cope with financially, what you can cope with workload-wise within your business, and to write your policies and procedures so that you ensure that you meet the statutory minimum levels but so that you have a culture where your staff really feel valued and will give to your business. Because it will reap long term benefits.