A company’s policies say so much about its culture. They reflect how seriously a business takes its duty of care to employees, how modern its outlook is, and how far it acknowledges that staff have a life to live outside of their professional role.
However, this also means policies can be quite exposing – particularly when they haven’t been updated in a while. Through the fresh eyes of job candidates, when they evaluate their suitability for a role, they’ll be looking to see whether a company’s values align with their own.
Take parental leave, for example. Often the elephant in the room during job interviews – as candidates fear they’ll hamper their chances by asking about it – company policies and attitudes towards paid leave for new parents vary dramatically. Parental leave policies often reflect a business’s nationality. For example – a recent study from the Society for Human Resource Management found that only 58% of companies in the US pay their staff wages during maternity leave (and not necessarily for the full duration). Compare this with Denmark, where new mothers can take up to 18 weeks’ paid leave, fathers can take two, and parents are entitled to an additional 32 weeks that can be split between them as they wish.
For nations where paid parental leave is unfortunately presented as a perk rather than a necessity, companies that can offer paid leave for new parents as a policy are instantly viewed as more human by employees – they increase their chances of retaining talent by making it possible for people to reconcile their desire to have a family life with a career. But it doesn’t quite stop there. What about LGBT couples with young kids? Or single parents? In order to move with the times, parental-leave policies need to recognise the changing nature of families today. Employees should be able to see themselves and their situations in company policy. Using inclusive language in parental-leave policies, with room for manoeuvre to account for family dynamics, is really important – and businesses who fail to do so quickly appear old-fashioned.
Forward-thinking companies support the return back to work, but may also consider how family commitments extend way beyond the point in time where employees’ children say their first words. Taking time away from work may be vital to care for ageing parents, support the family through a bereavement or care for a spouse when they have a long-term illness (while also being the breadwinner). Businesses that can offer greater flexibility in challenging times demonstrate that they won’t make employees choose between their loved ones and a salary-paying job. Most often, these difficult times can’t be neatly dealt with by offering a fixed amount of paid leave – how do you put a time limit on grieving, or recovering from a critical illness? It’s better to avoid polices that dictate rigid amounts of “days off” for highly emotional times, and instead work with employees to monitor their unique situation. The more finance directors can tailor company policies to support employees in tough times, the more loyalty they gain from their staff. It may be an investment, but it’s one that pays off considering the costs of hiring to replace employees.
According to IWG’s 2019 Workspace Survey, 62% of the international businesses surveyed have a formal flexible working policy in place. This is encouraging, and reflects how global businesses are increasingly embracing the benefits of flexible working. Having a formal policy not only sets a framework for offering employees reduced hours, irregular hours or the option to work from a different location when needed – it shows that, as a company, you are keeping apace with the demands of our times. Flexible working is becoming the new normal, and businesses who fail to address this will quite quickly fall behind – especially since 80% of respondents to the 2019 Workspace Survey would turn down a job offer that didn’t offer flexible working in favour of a similar one that did.
By writing policies to be proud of, and communicating them to both potential employees and existing ones, businesses can demonstrate a people-centric working culture – a strong competitive advantage, and more intuitive way of running a successful company that employees will want to be part of.
See how flexible working helps retain talented employees
