Fathers and the workplace

Again, Meg, I'm not sure we need be that surprised. Changing legislation is one thing, changing attitudes is quite another. It is quite possible (if not almost certain) that the apparent lack of desire of male colleagues to participate in the early weeks of childhood is no more than the long-standing failure of society as a whole to assimilate men into that chaotic, emotional, life-changing, rewarding, frustrating, wonderful, and sometimes downright terrifying, time!

When a creature raised in captivity is released into the wild it often refuses to move from its cage, not from any desire to stay penned, but because it is bewildered and confused by to open field or sky before it.....

I remember well the lonely feeling of being the only man who turned up for anti-natal classes with his wife (a radical new option 39 years ago) and the thinly veiled hostility of some of the other women present (until it was mentioned that I was at the time also an Ambulanceman). Today the exception is more likely to be the partner who refuses.

Give male workers (and their employers) a while to get used to the idea of FW (four years so far) and ShPL being the norm' and we will catch up. :-)

There are also still (female) HR managers around who, in spite of FW being agreed by a company's operational managers, will block FW applications on the grounds that "the mother" should be taking time off to arrange child-care and a man being granted the right will "open the floodgates" of other applications.

So the whole issue of incorporation of both male-parental and wider FW rights remains a "work in progress" with a long way to go and a lot of learning to do!

P

Hi Julie,

A whole other thread perhaps but how do you increase the rights and flexibility of one group without affecting the work life balance of another?

This CIPD report from 2013 says...

If flexible working options are transparent and open to everyone in ways that make sense to the business, there will be less resentment about perceived favouritism for groups such as young parents with childcare responsibilities.

But yes... definitely something orgs needs to factor in... but tricky to forward plan. Particularly difficult for smaller businesses... although maybe a mindset change needed to see this issue as partly about managing flexible teams successfully?

Maybe something for the new Flexible Working Taskforce to consider (co-chaired by CIPD's Peter Cheese) which met for the first time last week.

That topic is in fact addressed by the memorandum covering the re-drafting of the legislation, as long as four years ago! Unusually, the legislators have actually included this document with the act to explain its purposes.

It's at:
www.legislation.gov.uk/.../contents

As can be seen, the recognition was that the earlier statute disproportionately "advantaged" women in their ability to apply, but in doing so created the further disadvantageous stereotype that they were disproportionately responsible for any disruption to employment caused by the needs of childcare. The new regulations intention being to remove the right to apply for FW from the "parental" (and implied sexual characteristic) forum altogether and to offer the right to anyone who wished to apply, such applications being affected by employers seeing the advantage of extending their organisational working hours, or re-focusing available productive effort onto the times when it is most needed.

(Which interfaces with the often-distorted debates regarding other forms of flexibility and the potential abuses related to them, e.g. zero-hours contracts).

The regulations thus permit an employer to effectively ignore parental status in organising the flexibility of their workforce, if other issues such as the availability of work at the newly proposed times, or skills profile of available workers, are of significance.

The suggestion that men (parents or not) choose not to take opportunities for FW on career grounds is thus invalid, should anyone have cared to read the memorandum and/or the core legislation in 2014, (good to know CIPD is about to do so) :-) since FW is not a "time out" but a "time-shift". Parental leave is of course a different matter but it must be suggested that although the argument may be true at this moment in time, it is under notice of redundancy, since if both parents could share the leave equally on equal terms (e.g. paid time off) then the career-disadvantage of the "time out" would also be equal.

The answer therefore seems to be for the legislation on FW to be accommodated as was intended (and stated as being so), without reference to sex, or parenthood, as a business advantage waiting to be taken (or debated), and for the remaining career disadvantages of taking time-out for child-rearing to be resolved.

In short: make the playing field as level on parental leave as it now is on FW.... and get the players..... ALL OF THEM..... to read the rule-book and play by it!

"...should anyone have cared to read the memorandum and/or the core legislation in 2014, (good to know CIPD is about to do so)"

Eh? I'm sure people here have read that, Peter! Please don't infer that from my comment about the Taskforce!

"Did CIPD help her employer (or its large and well-staffed HR department and team) understand the regulations four years ago without either of us noticing?"

CIPD cannot force employers to read stuff and act reasonably.

No Steve, but it should be ensuring that CIPD members are practising within the regulations and (thus) that they act, at the very least, as the "pebble in the pond" and radiate their understanding and knowledge to others around them. The decision that came back was clearly flawed (which I pointed out, and why) yet had come from a department stuffed with CIPD members!

This was an important change to legislation yet in the four years since it changed it seems that the employer.... (are HR departments not part of the employer....?) had not adopted acceptable procedures and none of those members in place had (seemingly) pointed out the issues I did, just as none had pointed out the disparity in pay at the BBC, etc. etc. etc.

CIPD (I assume you mean its board) can't make employers....... But its members, who ARE really CIPD, most certainly CAN.

...And could do so even better, with proactive support when needed.

I have been "making employers...." do things for the last thirty years, by pointing out what will happen if they don't, because I have bothered to do so. Like thousands of our colleagues up and down this country. So CIPD (we) most certainly CAN "make employers....".

My "dig" at CIPD only now debating the issues was in fun, but the reality remains that lone-practitioners should not have to struggle to "make employers...." read the legislation, or anything else ALONE or with the limited resources we can offer here.

So whose responsibility is it to change that? Mine? Yours? Or the CIPD Board's?

Because someone needs to.

Don't they?

Now shall we leave it there?

P

So whose responsibility is it to change that? Mine? Yours? Or the CIPD Board's?

A collective responsibility... and progress is being made, isn't it? 

I'm still confused in that you appear to be suggesting (you can correct me if otherwise) that CIPD should proactively interfere in how employers apply flexible working regs even when a CIPD member within an HR dept may not have 'flagged' anything themselves[?]

Yes, absolutely it is a collective responsibility, but with far clearer determination and support needed from the "top down".

To use a different example, the discussions regarding the GDPRs have included a number of developing guidelines and indicators from CIPD, encouraging and responding to feedback from members, with the result that there is a (still developing but already fairly sound) clear and practical "position" that members can relate to and use as authority for their practice: We are, from top-down to the newest and most junior appointee, all both informed and able to point to the "collective" CIPD position and if necessary use that as a "big stick" to persuade other mangers and SMTs that they need to take notice of the new regulation and (by implication) the member as its "in house" advocate.

So the individual, lone, HR professional becomes the "pebble in the pond" spreading the message, with CIPD's "headline" authority to support them.

In the reverse direction, if someone decides to sing from a different sheet, that will be highlighted and obvious and (with very little effort) indicated as poor practice.

I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding my point (albeit not one I set out to make here in the first place) that CIPD is not a group of people in Wimbledon: It is every active member, in every workplace, and in retirement or college also! On that basis we should be communicating common professional messages and facilitating common good-practices, being led and supported in doing so by the Board of "our" organisation; not left to our own devices to fight our battles (metaphorical or practical) alone with only our own resources....and the unofficial support of this Community.... to rely upon.

Therefore: No I am very definitely NOT saying that the Board should be interfering in every issue or every workplace (I'm not yet senile and I hope have never been (entirely) stupid), but if a member, however junior, says to their MD that having a policy of automatic rejection of FW applications, or of granting them to mothers only, is unlawful and cannot stand, they should be speaking with the authority of that Board, and if they are not listened to, that Board should be facilitating whatever direct support or assistance is needed to get that message across.... Because that member is practising professionally; they are protecting the employing organisation's interest (even if its SMT don't realise that), and they are (thus) fulfilling both their contract and the requirements of OUR Code of Conduct.

So: Yes, CIPD should have a considered position on every major aspect of practice, (just as the Community does here) and for the same reason and largely by the same mechanisms; communication, consensus and mutual support of good practice, or condemnation of poor, and yes, those should be monitored and where necessary enforced.

Just as does every other professional body.

Or should we admit that gas-fitters do it better? :-)

(Please note: that last was a humorous remark, I am not suggesting CIPD should produce a load of hot air).

...and I seriously DO look forward to the outcome of the deliberations over FW. Whenever they arrive.

P

Yes, absolutely it is a collective responsibility, but with far clearer determination and support needed from the "top down".

To use a different example, the discussions regarding the GDPRs have included a number of developing guidelines and indicators from CIPD, encouraging and responding to feedback from members, with the result that there is a (still developing but already fairly sound) clear and practical "position" that members can relate to and use as authority for their practice: We are, from top-down to the newest and most junior appointee, all both informed and able to point to the "collective" CIPD position and if necessary use that as a "big stick" to persuade other mangers and SMTs that they need to take notice of the new regulation and (by implication) the member as its "in house" advocate.

So the individual, lone, HR professional becomes the "pebble in the pond" spreading the message, with CIPD's "headline" authority to support them.

In the reverse direction, if someone decides to sing from a different sheet, that will be highlighted and obvious and (with very little effort) indicated as poor practice.

I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding my point (albeit not one I set out to make here in the first place) that CIPD is not a group of people in Wimbledon: It is every active member, in every workplace, and in retirement or college also! On that basis we should be communicating common professional messages and facilitating common good-practices, being led and supported in doing so by the Board of "our" organisation; not left to our own devices to fight our battles (metaphorical or practical) alone with only our own resources....and the unofficial support of this Community.... to rely upon.

Therefore: No I am very definitely NOT saying that the Board should be interfering in every issue or every workplace (I'm not yet senile and I hope have never been (entirely) stupid), but if a member, however junior, says to their MD that having a policy of automatic rejection of FW applications, or of granting them to mothers only, is unlawful and cannot stand, they should be speaking with the authority of that Board, and if they are not listened to, that Board should be facilitating whatever direct support or assistance is needed to get that message across.... Because that member is practising professionally; they are protecting the employing organisation's interest (even if its SMT don't realise that), and they are (thus) fulfilling both their contract and the requirements of OUR Code of Conduct.

So: Yes, CIPD should have a considered position on every major aspect of practice, (just as the Community does here) and for the same reason and largely by the same mechanisms; communication, consensus and mutual support of good practice, or condemnation of poor, and yes, those should be monitored and where necessary enforced.

Just as does every other professional body.

Or should we admit that gas-fitters do it better? :-)

(Please note: that last was a humorous remark, I am not suggesting CIPD should produce a load of hot air).

...and I seriously DO look forward to the outcome of the deliberations over FW. Whenever they arrive.

P