The benefits of shared parental leave for employers

Learn about the key benefits of shared parental leave for employers. Barney Ely, Director of Hays Human Resources, shares the latest insights.

Shared parental leave: Key insights

As the low uptake of shared parental leave makes headlines, it strikes me that many don’t see what this means for the wider condition of gender equality in the workplace. 

Shared parental leave in the UK isn’t just a means of sharing childcare responsibilities. For employers, shared parental leave is also a gateway to achieving gender balance across the entire world of work.

How can you make a shared parental leave policy work for you and your employees? You will need to:

• Fully understand the scheme and its inner workings
• Share information with your staff
• Integrate the scheme into your company culture.

Before digging into each of those actions, let’s see why shared parental leave is important.

Shared parental leave: Background

Fundamentally, shared parental leave gives parents more flexibility with their childcare plans. There are many potential benefits of shared parental leave for employers and workers alike.

By encouraging the sharing of parental duties, women and men achieve an equal footing. Women especially need not be impacted as harshly by an extended career break, for example. 

Shared parental leave, if managed well, can keep talented women in your company, grow loyalty and open up more career opportunities upon their return. As HR professionals, it’s our duty to make sure shared parental leave is more widely adopted. It brings benefits for both sides, helping ensure the success of organisations and increasing opportunities for women overall.

So, how can you encourage the uptake of shared parental leave within your organisation?

Knowledge is power

To encourage increased uptake of the shared parental leave programme, you first have to understand it. Shared parental leave is complex and still relatively new. This is often enough to put off new parents, which is why your HR teams need to learn and properly inform new parents of all of their options.

In some cases, fathers may have doubts about entering into the scheme. While you can’t force anybody, reassuring and informing staff of their options can help. Knowing you are there to support their parenting decisions could encourage greater uptake and reduce some of the stigmas for new fathers. 

Transform your culture

Is your aim to make your workplace a more supportive environment for all? Then your work starts in the hiring process. The most effective method of building a supportive culture is to start early in a professional’s journey with your organisation.

When recruiting new staff, introduce shared parental leave and any other childcare benefits as an aspect of your culture. Ensure that new employees are aware of their rights and on board with your programmes from the start. All employees should feel that they are equally supported, regardless of gender.

Open a dialogue

You should also get involved in internal communications and produce content which encourages the uptake of the programme. Make it known that extended leave will not be detrimental to an employee’s career. 

You can further encourage the scheme by making strong career plans and instigating return-to-work schemes. Try to put mothers and fathers at ease when considering shared parental leave.

By creating this culture, you will also help more women to hit the ground running when they return to work. Overall, you’ll build a supportive and caring culture, helping to close the gender gap which appears at the more senior end of many professions.

Shared parental scheme: Next steps for your business

Employing these techniques will help you realise the far-reaching benefits of shared parental leave for your organisation. You can also lead the way in bettering the condition of gender equality in your workplace.

Hays is pleased to have achieved the National Equality Standard (NES), one of the UK’s most rigorous and prestigious accreditations for equality, diversity and inclusion. Read more insights on the modern workplace on our blog.