I'm writing this blog on December 1st, the day the new regime
of Shared Parental Leave came into effect in the UK. Employment legislation now
recognises that fathers and mothers can share responsibility for caring for a
new baby. This is a period of 50 weeks, in addition to the 2 weeks of paternity
leave, which means a father can potentially take a whole year off to look after
a new baby whilst the mother goes back to work.
This is another sign that the old
assumptions about flexible working are no longer valid. Since professional
women are now quite likely to be earning more than their male partners, there
are economic pressures for fathers to take a major share of the parental leave
whilst the mothers return to their careers. Since July this year, UK legislation has
also recognised that it’s not just parents who want to work flexibly. Now all
employees have equal rights to request flexible working and employers cannot
discriminate on gender or parental grounds when considering a request.
These changes mean that employers need to
be more prepared than ever to manage flexible workers. However, there is
mounting evidence that many companies have not planned for the new world of
agile working. In particular, there are still many organisations that don’t
allow people to work from home, or from any remote location, because they are
unsure how to make it happen.
To provide guidance on remote working, the
Telework Association is planning to update the Telework Handbook. This will
give practical advice to companies and individuals wanting to set up remote
working schemes and will contain up-to-date examples of how it can be done. The
project is being funded through the crowd-funding website Kickstarter and can
be found at http://kck.st/1FzFuu0.
