Maternity Matters Autumn 2007

Welcome to Maternity Matters. This newsletter is the first from ICAS in partnership with Managing Maternity Ltd.

The strategic partnership between the two organisations offers a new way to help businesses develop measures to support family-friendly working and manage maternity and return to work. Services include consultancy and HR masterclasses, management workshops and guidelines, 1:1 and group coaching for women and lunchtime seminars.

For this issue of our newsletter, we are delighted to focus on the findings of Managing Maternity 2007 (download a PDF of the full report), a survey conducted by ICAS in partnership with Managing Maternity Ltd.

If after reading the report you recognise the themes and would like to find out more about how we can help, please contact us. We find we are supporting an increasingly diverse range of clients in getting to grips with being an employer of choice in this field.

This will be an annual benchmarking survey – please contact us if you would like to take part in 2008 or with ideas on information that you would like us to focus on.

Anna Hayward
Director, Managing Maternity

Survey highlights new maternity trends

Interested in learning about the experience of other organisations around maternity, retention, strategies for return to work and the role played by line managers?

Managing Maternity 2007 conducted by ICAS in partnership with Managing Maternity Ltd – some headlines:

• Trend towards longer maternity leave: 10 - 12 months in a third of organisations

• Return rates of 96% in the public sector and 79% in the private sector are reported after maternity leave but there is lack of recording of return rates and retention statistics: 31% of private sector respondents and 43% of all large organisations simply do not know return rates and nearly a third of all organisations do not know how long they retain women after returning from maternity leave.

There are clear workplace issues which are identified as having an impact on the decision of women not to return to work:

• 42% of respondents believe women returning to work are put off by the lack of career development opportunities which allow work-life balance.

• 40% cite the reluctance or difficulties faced by managers in implementing flexible working.

• Almost 1 in 3 respondents claim that an unsympathetic workplace culture has impacted on a woman’s decision not to return to work; getting on for a quarter stated that this impact is significant.

There is a great deal more information in the report which we hope you will find useful for planning your own approach to maternity management, retention of women and enhancing your family-friendly reputation.

Additional paternity leave – latest

Outcome of government consultation

The government has just published responses to the consultation process on Additional Paternity Leave and Pay

More background can be found on the web pages of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform

Respondent’s main concerns centered round ensuring that the administration of APL&P took a balanced approach whereby employers would feel confident in administering the scheme and employees would readily understand their entitlements, and their responsibilities.

Managing Maternity Ltd took part in this consultation process. We welcome steps to help parents combine work and family successfully, particularly in the early stages.

Introduction in 2010

The government had previously announced its intention to implement Additional Paternity Leave and Pay alongside the extension of maternity pay to 12 months before the end of this parliament. It now appears that changes will not be introduced until 2010.

How Additional Paternity Leave will work

Additional Paternity Leave and Pay will enable employed fathers to take up to 26 weeks Additional Paternity Leave, some of which can be paid, if the mother of the child has returned to work. Adoptive parents and civil partners will also be covered by the proposals, so the term “father” has a broad meaning, and could include a female partner.

The ground has been laid for this by the Work and Families Act 2006 and it remains simply for the government, acting upon consultation responses, to set out the way in which this will be administered.

This new provision will be available during the second six months of the child’s life, providing parents with more choice in child care responsibilities and for the first time ever, the option of dividing a period of paid leave entitlement between them.