HELPING STRESSED DADS BALANCE WORK AND FATHERHOOD
Why supporting new dads in the workplace is key to gender equality
The cultural norms around work are changing at a rapid rate thanks to the pandemic, but we must not allow it to widen the gender gap at work. Dads are key
Written for HR Zone
Why supporting new dads in the workplace is key to gender equality
The cultural norms around work are changing at a rapid rate thanks to the pandemic, but we must not allow it to widen the gender gap at work. A key part of this is creating the right conditions for working dads to take on their share of the caring responsibilities.
Writing for HR Zone I explored three key themes:
1. Stressed dads seek new ways of working
2. Dads fear being seen as 'uncommitted'
3. Equality starts at home
“Gender equality took a big hit in 2020. At the start of the pandemic, the government suspended enforcement of gender pay gap reporting. Domestically, women took on more unpaid labour and despite evidence that the first Covid-19 lockdown led to a 58% increase in childcare undertaken by men, the equality gap widened and more recently those gains appear to have rolled back. Facebook groups such as The Career Mum are full of stories from working mums taking on a disproportionate share of unpaid domestic labour, whether it’s childcare, home school support or the mental load.”
Connect with me on LinkedIn and join the debate
Flexible working is 'Just as important to men'
Please can we stop framing flexible working as a female "thing." It’s "just as important" for men.
Flexible Working is ‘just as important to men’
An article on the business part of the BBC website caught my eye…
"Senior jobs with flexible hours 'get 20% more female applicants"
First thought, awesome.
Second thought, I wonder if there’s anything about men? Because I know men want flexible working too.
Hidden away (a bit too much for my liking) was reference to men - “just as important for men”
Argggh, come on BBC I thought! This is a really important angle - the angle that would make a world of difference to gender equality to the workplace.
So I opened Linkedin and penned this 1300 character post that has got a lot of comments, interaction and views. Click here to join in the conversation.
POLITE REQUEST
Please can we stop framing flexible working as a female "thing". The world and his dog knows that women have more caring responsibilities, but until we talk about it being a man thing too, we are doomed to pigeon hole genders into cages called caring and breadwinning.
These cages are traps - traps that keep women from achieving their potential in the workplace and men from being the active and involved fathers they don't remember growing up.
We need to release that canary.
BBC Business News article today "Senior jobs with flexible hours 'get 20% more female applicants"
My first thought, well yeah, obviously.
Knowing how hard men find it to ask for flex and part time work - society deem them not to "need" it, fear of being seen as "uncommitted", perceived optionality etc I wondered if there was anything about men.
Yes - the real story -'Just as important to men'
"The study... found many more men also applied for roles when they offered flexible working options, suggesting the issue was "just as important" for them."
This the truly groundbreaking stuff - pre covid!
Men want flexible working and enabling that desire is a key aspect of gender equality at home and at work.#flexforall #inspiringdads #workingdads
New title, same story?
The eagle eyed among you will have notice the article title is now different. I was also intrigued that the title of the piece changed twice… from
"Senior jobs with flexible hours 'get 20% more female applicants" to
“Flexible working helps with mum guilt' to
“It’s really hard to progress when working part-time”
Thankfully the BBC dropped the “mum guilt” angle quickly <facepalm>
A great story of increased female recruitment into Senior roles
Now despite my little rant, it’s worth noting that it’s a really good story about Zurich creatively increasing female recuitment into senior roles. As John Adams at DadBlogUk explains
“For Zurich to have increased female recruit in senior roles is brilliant. To have increased the number of women working flexibly in senior roles is better still. To have male and female senior managers working flexibly and encouraging other staff to do the same, that’s Zurich’s real success. I hope other employers will follow suit.”
I just wish the man angle had been explored in greater (any) depth.
and I’m not alone as the 100+ comments illustrate
“Totally agree and I thought the same thing when I read the article this morning. The policy is gender neutral so why can't our thinking be the same?”
“Such an important narrative. I also feel until men are encouraged to take flex working and shared parental leave, women will never truly be able to move forward from this feeling of asking for special treatment, feeling conflicted and that their careers may suffer if they move to flex etc. Flex for all is the only way to truly achieve a sense of equality.”
“Totally agree. From my experience coaching men in organisations, it’s much more difficult for them to ask for flexible working than it is for women. And understandably as they’re more likely to be judged as no longer engaged in their careers. Headlines like this do not help.”
Of course we aren’t JUST talking about flexible working for caring reasons. There are lots of reasons why people want flexible working patterns and all are important. I’m very keen on the idea of #Flexforall.
What did Zurich do?
In addition to using gender neutral language, each job advert between March 2019 and Feb 2020 stated the roles were available as:
“Part-time, flexible hours, job share.”
The outcome
“Since changing its policy on job adverts, the number of women hired for top roles has risen by 33%”
“20% more likely to apply for senior roles if they offer flexible hours.”
In conclusion, great story - but let’s also keep telling all the stories, in particular the one that shines a light on what men want and stops flexible working from being seen a female only desire. Because that doesn’t help anyone!
Click the button to join the conversation on LinkedIn
Photo Credit: Eric Ayon via Unsplash @ericayon10
Will dads continue to engage with flexible working post-Covid 19?
In this 2 parter for Parent and Professional I look at working dads and flexible working post Covid 19.
Will Dads Continue to engage with flexible working post-covid-19?
In this 2 parter written for Parent and Professional I look at working dads and flexible working post Covid 19.
I start with “why does “business” need dads to continue to be engaged in flexible working?”, considering the gender pay gap and mental health.
Then I get onto meaty topics such as
How do dads engage with flexible working?
What do men want?
What gets in the way of dads’ accessing flexible working?
What can we do to support dads’ access to flexible working?
5 key long-term steps to support flexible working for dads
You can Read the articles here:
Photo credit - Jonas Kakaroto @jkakaroto on Unsplash
Fatherhood Matters: Changing the Culture for Working Dads
On Friday the 10th July, “Four Fab Fathers” came together as guests of Rachel Vecht, founder of Educating Matters to discuss fatherhood, culture and covid.
On Friday the 10th July, “Four Fab Fathers” came together as guests of Rachel Vecht, founder of Educating Matters.
Like ageing pop stars, we jostled with top billing and soundbites. Early attendees were treated to the sort of behind the scenes banter and rubbish jokes that you would expect from 4 white middle class dads (mostly in their 40s!)
Joking aside, the webinar was such a success we broke the internet – well Zoom had a technical issue that unexpectedly and annoyingly capped live attendees at 100. Lockdown maybe easing but technology shenanigans are still waiting to catch people out.
Contributors were Brian Ballantyne, Dan Reed, James Millar and myself, Ian Dinwiddy
Quotes throughout were taken anonymously from the chat box.
Access Password: 5w!B=*i!
Positives of Lockdown
James talked about time with his family, while recognising that isn’t a positive for everyone – depending on relationship tensions and available space, but for him real quality time without any fear of missing out and being able to eat flavoured crisps without their air pollution hampering face to face meetings!
Brian appreciated the chance to decompress, relishing the lack of a stressful commute.
Dan reflected on the unprecedented chance to spend time with his daughter, just turned 1, experiencing her milestones and being there for bedtime. In broader terms he made a great point about the democratisation of individual voices, with face to face opportunities likely to remain limited, location is no longer seen a disadvantage.
For me it was about the opportunity to invest in family time – weekend walks, movie night and eating together every day. We were all grateful and understanding of the privilege to have space inside to work and outside space to play.
Poll: What is the biggest challenge for working fathers?
A culture of presenteeism was the ‘winner’ with 42%, ahead of options
choice of flexible working denied,
fear of job loss and
obstructive line manager.
Here is selection of other challenges identified in the live chat
“Fear of cultural stereotype and social judgement”
“Sexism, managers, male and female, assuming that it should be a woman looking after children”
“Fear of Job Loss – if you’re not available then it’s not viewed upon ‘favourably’ “
“I think working Dad’s themselves are part of the problem in recognising their own journey, its challenges and being willing to reach out for help”
Challenges of Lockdown
Moving onto a discussion on the challenges of lockdown, James found it hard to find time to yourself and your own thoughts – despite the benefits of being together as a family there was a recognition from all of us that your own physical and emotional space really matters.
In contrast to Brian, Dan had found himself missing the commute – his time to listen to a podcast, play on the Switch or read. Instead replaced by zero commute time and a flip from “family mode” to “work mode” at 08:59 without so much as 15 minutes of mindfulness.
Brian’s comment about a “Maslow reset” (Hierarchy of Needs) resonated in the comments with worries about basic needs such as health, food (and toilet paper) having taken priority in the psyche.
We had all found it tricky to set and maintain barriers between work and home life, while at the same time accepting that one of the key ways for everyone to survive the process was to accept a degree of blend between work and family life, no matter how messy that could get.
What are the implications of the experience of working flexibly and remotely during lockdown for dads in future?
What key lessons can we take from this experience?
After these initial thoughts Rachel took us into bigger topics around flexible and remote working for dads, as Dan noted, many men see formal flexible working as “for mums.”
You can see why when last year Daddilife’s “Millennial Dad At Work” survey found that 63% of men surveyed had requested some form of flexibility, but of those who requested working from home (1-2 days a week), less than 1 in 5 of those were successful in their request (19%).
This isn’t flexible working
Early in lockdown James wrote an article pointing out that this version of remote working was not working from home and Dan echoed that point.
There’s nothing flexible about being forced to work from home in a space you share with your family and with school, formal childcare and informal family babysitting being taken away in one fell swoop.
My own experience of coaching and mentoring dads during Lockdown tells me that despite the practical and emotional challenges of lockdown, dads have also seen the benefits of being much more active and involved parents. They don’t want to return to the working structures of 2019, they want to design something that fits around their family life.
I think that that says a lot for just how broken the system has been, when, despite everything, a man in a 2 bed flat with a young baby tells you he wants to work from home regularly in the future.
Benefits
I think that despite the chaos, stress, and tension of this surreal version of remote working, we’re learning something what single dads have always known – that breadwinner and carer are not separate roles.
As Michael Ray https://michaelray.com.au/ pointed out in the comments:
“My current bug-bear is the preponderance of equality advocates who are too eager to classify bread-winning as somehow separate to care giving rather than a vital part of it which has allowed employers to be wilfully blind to parental responsibilities”
This messy, though ultimately rewarding, blend of work and life maybe be flawed but we want more of it.
Assumptions have flipped
Brian mused that the default has flipped. For office-based workers the default was office, with possibly some home / coffee shop / remote location and now we’ve gone the other way.
Yes there are consequences, as LinkedIn Change Maker John Adams pointed out this week, while major city / town centres and public transport firms will struggle in a new world of remote working, it does create an opportunity to rebalance the economy away from tax efficient corporate entities and into the hands of the local cafes and restaurants for instance.
Choice
Ultimately it needs to be about choice. Giving dads some sort of choice as to where to work to meet business and family objectives.
As James said recently, this is the route to “help fathers thrive and companies succeed.”
Not everyone wants to be in the office all the time, not everyone wants to be at home all the time, my wife (lawyer) is case in point. As part of writing this, I asked her what her ideal would be – 3 days in the London office, 2 days at home. But currently the 35-minute train journey isn’t very appealing…
At this point another poll Rachel ran showed – 82% planned to work more flexibility than pre-covid.
What guidance would you give to companies looking to support working dads and improve their experience at work, so they are able to be great employees and great dads?
Ditch the assumptions
My response was stop assuming that working dads don’t have caring responsibilities or desires to be more involved in their children’s lives.
It’s so important to dig deep and have proper time-consuming human to human conversations to understand what sort of support each employee needs. The pressure and tension a dad might be facing as he tries to juggle his responsibilities may not be obvious, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Men have become adept at concealing the pressure they face, presenting a face of devotion to their business.
Companies need to treat everyone as individuals and understand that caring responsibilities aren’t just for mums. That sort of lazy thinking creates a 2-tier system that does nothing for gender equality, mental health or productivity.
From the chat box:
“Managers are key here. They should understand the individual’s needs and encourage them to flex in the way they need to. Plus, role model themselves.”
Understand intersectionality
This comment from the chat illustrates how the mental health pressures that dads face collides with ethnicity:
“Sadly, I was signed off because of the extreme pressure and now there is another dad (a good friend) with 2 small children, he’s been signed off for 4 weeks (I was signed off for 2 weeks). Being the only black man in the office, I feel all your pressure plus…”
Understand the effect of school holidays – especially in 2020
It’s especially important at the moment – school summer holidays have started, and the vast majority of childcare settings are shut, plus large numbers of grandparents will still be shielding until at least 1st August.
Now is the time for business to understand the childcare responsibilities and support needs for all of their staff.
Tap into empathy
James talked about companies being both mindful of the return work challenges of returning from furlough AND also seeing it as an opportunity to improve empathy towards maternity returners amongst others.
“I’ve been on shared pat leave it is obviously great but a real eye opener for the bump back to work post maternity leave”
Identify and celebrate senior male role models
Working dads take their signals on behaviour from their male leadership.
Brian talked about changing to a more authentic version of himself, becoming a role model for active and involved fatherhood – blogging about fatherhood. His view was that if you can’t be yourself, consider if your company is the right place for you anyway.
But Dads do need to ask…
Lockdown has improved the awareness of personal circumstances and an element of everyone being in a similar boat. Communication has been enhanced, through the lens of Zoom it’s become more personal. Now more than ever is the time to future proof your life.
To ask for the long-term flexible working patterns you and your family need. If you’re a working dad with a working partner, what happens if you don’t push back?
Who picks up the pieces? Who looks after the children?
The good news is that good businesses will want to help.
So, if not now, then when?
Dads face risk
“The difficulty with asking for flexibility is that you worry that if the answer is no, then there will be further consequences in terms of career opportunities in future… I’m ashamed to say that I’ve put this (Zoom) in my calendar as a “private” meeting so my team can’t see what I’m doing at the moment.”
But we need to keep shouting about the benefits of flexible working.
Not just shouting because as James said on our podcast, it’s harder to be heard with a face mask on…
Productivity Benefits
Mental Health Benefits for the whole family
Achievement benefits for our children
Improved relationships with partners = happier employees
Saving money on commuting
Saving money on office space
Don’t feel guilty about being a dad. Speak up, because it might be easier than you think.
“Sometimes things you think others would find difficult are actually OK, but we are worried what others would think”
“Yes, if we didn’t worry about what people thought, we would just ask for it.”
Enhanced Parental Leave is so important.
Shared Parental Leave suffers because families can’t afford to use it and it is dependent on a transfer of rights (usually from a woman to man)
James talked about the benefits Aviva found with 6-month full paid gender neutral parental leave – giving others the opportunity to step up and improving the skjills and capability of the business.
Gender neutral leave is also really important for same sex relationships:
“I’m a mother in a same sex relationship and because I wasn’t the pregnant one, I was also only entitled to two weeks paid time off (despite breastfeeding!) The policy documents that applied to me were named “paternity” policies.”
This comment hit the nail on the head:
“Puppies aren’t just for Christmas and dads aren’t just for parental leave – both have ongoing needs and responsibilities. Too many organisations are patting themselves on the back after providing a shared parental leave policy and then frowning when dad requests to attend school sports day, lipstick on a pig”
Finally, in one-word what would like to see happen in the workplace for dads.
James – Awareness
Ian – Mentoring
Rachel – Communication
Brian – Authenticty
Dan – Openness
Photo credit: Limor Zellermayer via Unsplash @limorganon
3 things HR needs to know about dads returning to work
Do you just assume childcare is for mums? Find out why that’s a problem in this vlog.
In this vlog for Parent and Professional, I explore three key issues that HR professionals need to be aware of in order to effectively support working dads and their transition back to the workplace.
Childcare assumptions
Fear of being seen as uncommitted
Potential domestic conflict
Photo Credit: Juan Rojas on Unsplash @juanrojas
Why take Shared Parental Leave?
Shared Parental Leave has the potential to deliver superb benefits for Dads, Mums and Society. It’s time to get properly behind it.
Why take Shared Parental Leave?
Since 2015 it has been possible for parents of new born or adopted children to share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay between you.
This post will explain the benefits of Shared Parental Leave (SPL) and why it has the potential to be a game changer as we move to equal parenting opportunities. Opportunities that will allow Dads to spend much more time with their children.
More and more Dads want to spend time with their young children, even at the cost of their own careers. The choices you make before your children are even born will set the scene for the rest of your life.
Shared Parental Leave gives choice to families. Dads and partners don’t have to miss out on their baby’s first step, word or giggle – they can share the childcare, and share the joy.
Challenges and Opportunities
Aviva
The Insurance company Aviva has a policy that offers equal parental leave to men and women working at Aviva - up to 12 months in the UK, including 26 weeks at full pay.
As with all decisions around having children, returning to work, deciding who will looks after your children and for how long. There can challenges, especially with finances.
Unless you have an employer with enhanced parental leave policy >>
It’s important to consider
What sort of Dad do you want to be?
How do you want to be remembered?
What kind of relationship do you want to build with your children?
The mentality around the early years won’t change until we all accept mums and dads equally equipped to look after their offspring.
A case study for your inspiration.
Shared Parental Leave - The Benefits
1. Improved relationships with your children.
Proof of the bonds with my son (!) - ‘You are a Poo-Poo Head Daddy’
As a new Dad, the time you spend building relationships with your young children is priceless. The potential is there to create brilliant early bonding experiences, they might not remember the details but those bonds will be there forever and you get to be the type of Dad you wanted to be.
I found, too, that it strengthened the bond between my son and me. He became less crazy-sleepysuit-of-madness and more of a little buddy. And when I came to be the one who was there when he was hungry or tired or had bonked his head, the more he understood I was a source of comfort, too. That effort has lasted into his toddler years and, I hope, long beyond that.
Adam Dewar - The Guardian
2. Practical and emotional support for each other.
The prevailing wisdom is that Maternity Leave is wonderful time for mothers to bond with their babies, but many women struggle with the emotional and practical challenges of looking after babies, especially if they have other children too.
Post Natal Depression is very common among women and likely to be under-reported in men. Sharing leave either together or separately could literally be a lifesaver.
The peak time for postnatal depression in men is three to six months after the birth . As with postnatal depression in mums, it often goes unreported. The symptoms can look a lot like the everyday stresses of having a newborn .
Source: NCT
My own experience of the first 6 months of our first baby’s life was of phoning my wife each lunchtime and fearing hearing how she had struggled that morning with our reflux suffering daughter.
Click here for more on benefits of SPL for Mums.
By sharing the parenting duties you’ll be sharing the mental load and improving gender equality at home.
3. earlier return to the workplace for your partner
It’s not necessarily going to be your priority as a couple, but SPL could be a powerful tool.
Rather than one parent taking 8 months of out work - with the associated practical and long term pay challenges this can lead to (aka the Motherhood Penalty). You both take 4 months.
Your partner can get back to the career she loves, knowing that the little one is in great hands. While you get the benefits of bonding with your kids.
The longer anyone is out of the workplace the harder it is to return. By sharing leave and care it allows women to return to the workplace earlier if they want by supporting a more seamless transition back to the workplace.
4. You’ll be happier
If you are one of the many many Dads who wants to more involved in the lives of his young family then being able to take that opportunity and not feel frustrated and left out is so important.
By normalising Dads looking after children, you’ll be a leader of men, with all the fame, fortune and kudos that brings. Plus you’ll get to discover Octonauts, one of the best kids TV ever produced.
5. Reduce the Gender Pay Gap
This is the big picture really.
✅ Doing what you want - looking after your young children.
✅ Your partner doesn’t have to spend so long away from the workplace.
✅ Female progression in the workplace becomes more likely as employers can’t assume that it is only women who take time off when couples have children. They will have to treat talent equally.
True equality is gained by having true equality of choice of parenting.
“Better gender balance makes business more successful. The McKinsey Global Institute (2015) estimated that a scenario in which women achieve complete gender parity with men could increase global output by more than one-quarter relative to a business-as-usual scenario.
Source: Axis Network.
Shared Parental Leave - Next Steps
If this looks like something you would like to do we have a few key steps:
Find out what your firm’s policy is.
Find out and talk to people in your business who have taken SPL.
Run the UK Government Calculator.
Talk to New Dads. Build a network and discuss your options.
Talk to your partner - be honest about what you want to do
Understand what you can afford to do.
Compare the financial investment v the benefits you’ve learnt.
SPL pays currently £145.18 per week or 90 per cent of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower. Where employers haven’t extended enhanced maternity schemes to SPL, it often doesn’t make financial sense for the father, who typically earns more, to take SPL.
Shared Parental Leave - The Facts
Below is a summary of the UK government rules - for full details click here.
*** There are some differences in the eligibility of Shared Parental Leave (SPL) or Shared Parental Pay (ShPP). Please use the calculator or check the government guidance.
Use this calculator to check if you can get leave or pay when you have a child.
Some assumptions
To keep this simple we are talking about SPL for Dads of newborns.
Overview
You can share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay between you. The mother is obliged to take two weeks’ leave, but following that, it would be up to the couple as to how they split the remaining 50 weeks – 37 with statutory pay of up to £145.18 a week.
You need to share the pay and leave in the first year after your child is born or placed with your family.
You can use SPL to take leave in blocks separated by periods of work or take it all in one go.
You can also choose to be off work together or to stagger the leave and pay.
Eligibility
To be eligible for Shared Parental Leave (SPL) and Statutory Shared Parental Pay (ShPP), both parents must:
Share responsibility for the child at birth.
Meet work and pay criteria - these are different depending on which parent wants to use the shared parental leave and pay
If both parents want to share the SPL and ShPP
You and your partner must:
Have been employed continuously by the same employer for at least 26 weeks by the end of the 15th week before the due date (this is around the time you got pregnant).
Stay with the same employer while you take SPL.
Be ‘employees’ (not ‘workers’).
Each earn on average at least £116 a week.
If, as the mother’s partner, you want to take the SPL and ShPP
The mother must:
Have been working for at least 26 weeks (they do not need to be in a row) during the 66 weeks before the week the baby’s due.
Have earned at least £390 in total across any 13 of the 66 weeks.
You must:
Have been employed continuously by the same employer for at least 26 weeks by the end of the 15th week before the due date (this is around the time the mother got pregnant).
Stay with the same employer while you take SPL.
Be an ‘employee’ (not a ‘worker’).
Earn on average at least £116 a week.
Confused yet?
Use this calculator to check if you can get leave or pay when you have a child
When can you start?
You can only start Shared Parental Leave (SPL) or Shared Parental Pay (ShPP) once the child has been born or placed for adoption.
The mother (or the person getting adoption leave) must either:
Return to work, which ends any maternity or adoption leave
Give their employer ‘binding notice’ of the date when they plan to end their leave (you cannot normally change the date you give in binding notice)
You can start SPL while your partner is still on maternity or adoption leave as long as they’ve given binding notice to end it.
(You can give binding notice and say when you plan to take your SPL at the same time.)
Ian Dinwiddy, Founder
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A new generation of dads wants be an active and involved parent and thrive at work - and this represents a major opportunity for families, the workplace and society.