If you have school age children and you work you will no doubt have noticed what appears to be the huge number of school holidays the children seem to have.  In Northamptonshire the children have just enjoyed a two week Easter break, the May day bank holiday weekend and in another few weeks time it will be Whitsun half term.  Trying to juggle childcare and work can be a nightmare.  In this blog we give advice to businesses on how to be a family friendly employer and ease the way for employees who may be stressed working parents because of this situation.

The government recently announced changes to the child care voucher scheme.  Currently child care vouchers could enable an employer to be family friendly.   From autumn 2015 almost two million working families could get a tax free allowance of up to £2,000 per child to help pay for childcare.  Parents who are both in work with children under the age of 12 will be able to get a 20% rebate per child on the annual cost of childcare. The Tax-Free Childcare scheme will replace the existing childcare vouchers programme, which is only available when offered by an employer.

The existing childcare voucher scheme will remain in place until the new system comes in during 2015.  For a long time childcare vouchers have been the most popular employee benefit in the UK.  Through salary sacrifice employees can benefit from tax and national insurance breaks when they take up the vouchers.  They can be used for nursery care, childminders, au pairs as well as play schemes during school holidays and after school clubs.  It costs an employer relatively little to set up a childcare voucher scheme yet can bring huge benefits to working parents.

If an employer is unable to offer a child care scheme to their employees, it is useful that they can provide information to working parents of where there are schemes in the area.

Flexible working has been available for quite a few years for parents with children up to the age of 18 and it is being extended in June 2014 to all employees.  Flexible working can  allow working parents the elusive work life balance helping them to spend precious time with their children and cut childcare costs.  The new legislation being introduced this summer will be less prescriptive than currently in terms of the procedure.  The timescale for responding to requests and setting up meetings will not be set in stone but left to the employer to deem what is reasonable.  Hopefully employers will act reasonably in how they manage flexible working requests.  Many managers are fearful of granting requests in case things go pear shaped.  However if both parties think through the consequences of a request in advance of a meeting then any problems can be aired and hopefully solutions found.

Other ways to help employees with children are to offer discount vouchers and retail cards for theme parks and restaurants which will help summer holiday spending.

Benefits an organisation can offer to enhance its reputation as a family-friendly employer include emergency childcare, school holiday clubs, nursery discounts and travel insurance for family holidays.  Employers can also use  voluntary benefits including retail discounts and savings, to help working parents.

Britain can be a very un-family friendly place to work with only 26% of employers offering a back to work policy according to research done by Mumsnet in 2013.

New legislation covering shared parental leave will come into force in April 2015 and this will  encourage employers to change their provisions of helping parents back to work putting the appropriate procedures in place.  Perhaps many more male employees could be off work for longer periods. 

A good employer will look at developing procedures for enhanced parental leave and emergency care leave.