Tag: Support

Employers need to re-evaluate job perks for women

Less than 3% of jobs offered by UK employers advertise benefits necessary to help women thrive. This is according to new research from the job search engine Adzuna.

The company looked at more than one million job ads in March 2023 to find out how many postings promoting perks aimed at women. The results revealed the dire need for employers to step up.

In Adzuna’s analysis, they found:

  • 29,501 of the 1,043,451 job ads cited perks aimed at retaining and supporting women.
  • only 17,638 ads promoted enhanced maternity or parental leave.
  • just 6,410 postings offered some support with childcare costs.
  • only 821 job ads mention menopause support; of those, just 30 postings offer paid HRT therapy. This is despite evidence showing that 1 in 10 women aged 45-55 leaves the workforce due to symptoms of menopause.
  • only 5 UK job ads offered menstrual leave.

Recent research by YouGov found that almost half of Brits favour of the introduction of menstrual leave legislation. A further 40% of women said they regularly get period pain which is severe enough to affect their ability to work. Some countries have realised the negative impact that this time of the month has on women in the workplace. For example, Spain recently introduced legislation allowing three days per month of state-paid menstrual leave for those with incapacitating periods.

Adzuna’s research also found that fertility benefits such as egg freezing and IVF support are rare, with only 51 job ads mentioning these perks. Various large tech companies offer these benefits, but hiring in large tech companies is currently depressed, so there are limited options for women seeking fertility benefits from employers.

In contrast, many employers are offering popular perks such as duvet days (619 job ads), unlimited holidays (953 ads), and free gym membership (3,912 ads).

Paul Lewis, Chief Customer Officer at job search engine Adzuna, comments: “Women remain woefully undersupported in the UK workplace. Instead of duvet days or free gym membership, employers need to focus on benefits that support female employees. In particular, evidence shows menopause and menstruation are top factors making it harder for women to thrive at work, even leading many to drop out of the workforce. Women shouldn’t need to suffer in silence; employers need to step up, introduce open dialogues around these topics and add more flexibility for women juggling their health with work. Furthermore, keeping women in the workplace is key to filling skill gaps, so introducing benefits that help attract, support and ultimately retain women makes sense from a business as well as a societal perspective.”

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Fewer than 3% of job ads on offer in March offer support to women

According to new research from Adzuna, UK employers are failing to prioritise supporting women in the workplace, with fewer than 3% offering benefits necessary to help them thrive.

Adzuna analysed over a million job ads advertised in March 2023 which revealed the number of postings promoting perks aimed at women – and the dire need for employers to step up.

Overall, only 29,501 of the 1,043,451 job ads available cited perks aimed at retaining women in the workplace and supporting them to thrive. Only 17,638 ads promoted enhanced maternity or parental leave, and just 6,410 postings offered some kind of support with childcare costs (including on-site daycare or backup childcare).

Despite recent evidence showing 1 in 10 women aged 45-55 leave the workforce due to symptoms of the menopause, only 821 job ads mention menopause support, and of those just 30 postings are offering paid HRT therapy.

Only five UK job ads offered menstrual leave. Research by YouGov has found nearly half of Brits are in favour of the introduction of menstrual leave legislation, and 40% of women said they regularly get period pain bad enough that it affects their ability to work. Some countries are waking up to the huge negative impact this has on women in the workplace: Spain has recently introduced legislation allowing three days per month of state-paid for menstrual leave for those with incapacitating periods.

Fertility benefits such as egg freezing and IVF support are also rare, with just 51 job ads mentioning these types of perks. LinkedIn was one of the first companies to offer UK its staff these benefits, covering up to £21,000 towards IVF (around £5,000 per cycle) or adoption costs from 2019, and following in the steps of Facebook, Google and Apple in the US. But with hiring in large tech companies currently depressed, women seeking employers offering fertility benefits are facing limited options.

Other popular perks found by Adzuna included duvet days (619 job ads), unlimited holiday (953 ads) and free gym membership (3,912 ads) continue to be offered by many employers.

Paul Lewis, Chief Customer Officer at job search engine Adzuna, comments: “Women remain woefully undersupported in the UK workplace. Instead of duvet days or free gym membership, employers need to focus on benefits that support female employees. In particular, evidence shows menopause and menstruation are top factors making it harder for women to thrive at work, even leading many to drop out of the workforce. Women shouldn’t need to suffer in silence; employers need to step up, introduce open dialogues around these topics and add more flexibility for women juggling their health with work. Furthermore, keeping women in the workplace is key to filling skill gaps, so introducing benefits that help attract, support and ultimately retain women makes sense from a business as well as a societal perspective.”

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Senior managers under more stress than their teams realise, survey reveals

A new survey by HR software provider Ciphr has revealed that the cost-of-living crisis, high inflation and rising prices, and burnout are the biggest causes of stress at work for senior managers.

The survey polled 265 people in senior management and leadership roles at medium and large businesses in the UK. The respondents were asked what issues were causing them the biggest concern or most stress in their job. They were also asked whether they ever felt stressed or anxious before starting a new work week – also known as the ‘Sunday scaries’ or ‘Sunday blues’.

With 47% of the respondents saying that their job is causing them to suffer the ‘Sunday scaries’, it would appear that many senior managers are more overwhelmed by on-the-job stress than their colleagues and direct reports realise.

Of the 47% who admitted to dreading Mondays, 29% said they had experienced this feeling multiple times over the past year. A further 13% said the ‘Sunday scaries’ struck multiple times every month. For 5%, this experience happens every week.

Only 22% of the senior managers claimed not to have experienced the ‘Sunday blues’ while working at their current job or organisation.

The results also revealed that the bigger the workforce size, the greater the occurrence of the ‘Sunday scaries’, with senior leaders at bigger enterprises being more than twice as likely to experience the ‘Sunday scaries’ multiple times a month than those at SMEs (24% vs. 11%).

Survey results suggest that challenges relating to remote employment – and reduced social interaction exacerbate the stress of 18% of senior managers at remote-first organisations. However, with senior managers who have more in-person time in their role, the number falls to 10%.

Even if people don’t experience the ‘Sunday scaries’, they may still be stressed. Ciphr’s research found that 98% of people in senior management and leadership roles – regardless of whether they suffer from the ‘Sunday scaries’ or not feel stressed by at least one thing at work. Eighty-three percent could name three or more work-related stressors.

Interestingly, despite the stress, only 4% of senior managers said that they don’t like their jobs.

The top 15 causes of workplace stress for senior managers:

  • Cost of living crisis (30% of senior managers)
  • High inflation and rising prices (29%)
  • Exhaustion/burnout (22%)
  • Economic downturn (20%)
  • Workload and to-do lists (20%)
  • Unfinished work tasks (20%)
  • Employee retention and staff turnover (17%)
  • Rising interest rates (17%)
  • Business viability and profitability concerns (16%)
  • Wage inflation (16%)
  • Productivity problems (15%)
  • Pressure to perform well / expectations of others (15%)
  • Job security / losing my job (15%)
  • Growing the business / generating new revenue (15%)
  • Leadership responsibilities (14%)
  • Managing other people / the people I manage (14%)
  • Long working hours (14%)
  • Ongoing impact of Covid (14%)

Some common stressors noticeably affect the senior managers that frequently experience the ‘Sunday scaries’ compared to those who don’t:

  • Burnout (27% compared to 18%)
  • Pressure to perform well (20% compared to 10%)
  • Fear of losing their job (20% compared to 10%)
  • Long working hours (19% compared to 9%)
  • Their boss (16% compared to 7%)
  • Conflicts at work (15% compared to 8%)

Claire Williams, Chief People Officer at Ciphr, commented: “Since the pandemic, and with the ongoing impact of the cost-of-living crisis, there has been a lot of focus on the importance of alleviating workplace stress and what employers can do to safeguard their employees’ mental health. But less is said, perhaps, about the huge pressures that people in senior management and leadership roles feel and how stress impacts them.

 “The biggest stressors identified by the senior managers taking Ciphr’s survey can be grouped into three key themes, which orientate around workload, company performance, and their team. This is understandable, as it is expected, to a degree, that senior managers in any organisation will take on the ownership of those responsibilities in managing or leading an organisation. It shows they care, and that they care about the right things.

 “It is, however, important for organisations to be really mindful of the influence that work has on an individual’s stress levels – especially if they are senior management or the CEO – as they may be less likely to discuss how they are feeling. The best way to support them is for organisations to work proactively with their senior managers to either help relieve those stresses, where possible, or give them tools and strategies to cope with those stresses in a more targeted and positive way.

 “Stress, in general, doesn’t always need to be perceived as a negative – lots of people really thrive under stress and high-pressure situations – and produce some of their best work. But when high levels of stress cause anxiety or the Sunday scaries, that’s when increased risks to the business can start presenting themselves, through ill health, higher turnover of senior managers, ineffective leadership, or poor performance. It’s definitely in an employer’s interest to understand how their managers are feeling and what they can do to help, if there’s a problem, before it impacts the wider business.”

The full results are available at https://www.ciphr.com/causes-of-stress-at-work-2023-survey-results.

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90% of respondents said separation affected their ability to work

Solicitors at Kent law firm Furley Page have welcomed a new initiative by the Positive Parenting Alliance that could see employees being offered compassionate leave from work to deal with the breakdown of their marriage or relationship.

The Positive Parenting Alliance (PPA) initiative urges employers to treat a separation as seriously as other major life events, and is encouraging employers to implement policies specifically aimed at supporting those going through divorce or separation. Asda, Metro Bank, NatWest, PwC, Tesco, Unilever and Vodafone are among a group of major businesses that have already signed up to offer more support.

Josie Triffitt, a Solicitor with Furley Page’s Family team, commented: “It is widely recognised that a separation or divorce can be akin to a bereavement, so the PPA’s new initiative is an important step towards getting employers to acknowledge the impact of relationship breakdown on their employees.

“Anyone who has gone through a separation or divorce will know that it is often a difficult, complex and stressful time and for many who are working during this period, it can understandably have an impact on their performance, especially when the parties are dealing with the settlement financial matters or arrangements for their children.”

In a recent survey by the Positive Parenting Alliance, 90% of respondents stated that separation affected their ability to work and 95% said that their mental health was adversely affected, while more than half of the workers feared they could lose their job or thought about resigning. However, only 9% of employees said that their employers had a specific policy for separation and divorce.

Solicitor Eleanor Rogers, from Furley Page’s Employment law team, said: “In the absence of any such policy, the way that a separating or divorcing individual is treated will depend on their line manager’s approach, which may mean that employees are not treated consistently. Furthermore, in this world of hybrid working, issues such as mental health and wellbeing can be harder to spot.

“Employers can have a huge influence by ensuring that their employees feel supported, which in turn supports productivity and staff retention. The PPA’s new initiative is a positive step in the right direction, and going forward it is going to become more important for employers to put meaningful policies in place to provide assistance and support to staff as they cope with the impact of issues like separation or divorce.”

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Rising divorce rates most likely to hit small firms with brain drain

Employees of SMEs who have gone through a relationship breakdown are four times more likely to leave than those at large companies – and UK SMEs are nearly three times more likely to let the employee go post-relationship breakdown. In fact, 2.3% of SME employees were let go within the year and the redundancy rate per number of employees in 2020 was 0.8% (ONS Labour Market Statistics).

The 2021 Divorce in the Workplace study, conducted by Rayden Solicitors from 133 UK companies, found that divorce created a period of ‘breakup trauma’ – and 4 in every 5 UK employees who had been through divorce or relationship breakdown stated that it had an impact on their ability to work.

Most damningly, it found that 57% of SME employees stated that insufficient support post-relationship breakdown caused them anxiety, depression, or stress; 30% said their productivity suffered; and 16% had to take sick or unpaid leave post-relationship breakdown.

How can SMEs improve their support?

With SMEs accounting for 99.9% of the business population (6 million businesses), according to the Federation of Small Businesses, and 60% of all private sector jobs in the UK (a total of 16.6 million), according to the UK Department for Business Energy & Industrial Strategy, it’s in the interests of UK plc’s recovery to diffuse this time bomb.

According to the study, employees identified the following key areas for improvement to ease the process of going through a divorce in the workplace:

  • More support for mental wellbeing (42%)
  • Offer compassionate leave (32%)
  • Provide recommendations for external support (27%)
  • More privacy on the matter & better protection from HR (6%)
  • Wider workplace culture improvements (11%)

Commenting on the findings, Senior Partner at Rayden Solicitors Katherine Rayden, said: “SMEs need to be sensitive to the fact that divorce can affect their staff beyond their personal lives. Providing the appropriate support will put employees in a better position to cope with their divorce. It’s in the best interest of both the business and its people for SME employers to meet this need.”

Kirsten Keen, HR expert at Cluer HR, added: “If that person is a valued, respected member of the business, it surely goes without saying that it’s in the business’s interest to support that person through their difficult time – continuing to get the best from them and ultimately, retaining talent. It can be as simple as being flexible – allowing employees to attend solicitor meetings and court hearings in work time. Offering counselling services to staff – not just for issues that relate directly to work, but for personal issues, such as relationship breakdowns. Nurturing a culture whereby people talk about their homelife and are open about problems can also be helpful.”

Photo courtesy of Canva.com

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