Policy Review
As part of our commitment to becoming a family-friendly centre of excellence, we recently reviewed our family policies. We wanted to ensure that our policies embrace the diversity in parenting, including:
- adoptive
- foster parents
- single parents
- those experiencing the birth of premature babies
- those undergoing assisted conception
- parents of children from 0-18
- anyone with any kind of unpaid caring responsibility.
We consulted with colleagues with relevant lived experience to ensure that the new policies meet needs.
Our principle achievements include:
- Removing all service qualification periods for all forms of family-friendly leave. Full occupational entitlement for time off and pay from the first day of employment
- Increasing our paternity/partner leave entitlement for staff to 4 weeks at full pay. This is also a ‘Day 1’ entitlement
- Enhancing provision for parents of premature babies (Employer with Heart Charter)
- Introduced bereavement leave of up to two weeks for colleagues who experience an early miscarriage (<24 weeks gestation) and their partners
- Creating a ‘Family Time policy’ with paid provision and time off for those who are foster carers (up to 8 days paid leave) and those undergoing assisted conception (paid time off for up to 10 appointments for colleagues undergoing the treatment and their partners)
- A ‘Time for grandparents’ provision of up to one week unpaid leave when there is a new addition to the family
- A ‘Time for school’ provision of a few hours off on your child’s first day of school
- Reviewing and improving our Returners Support Programme providing flexible funded support (up to £10k) for all colleagues returning to work following a period of parental leave. This scheme is open to academics and professional services.
- Decoupled our ‘Maternity/Adoption policy’ into two separate policies. Rewrote the ‘Adoption policy’ so that it was fit for purpose, reflecting the robust adoption process and building in more flexible timescales
- Conducting a Carers’ Survey and approving an action plan to address challenges for colleagues and students in unpaid caring roles which has led to a standalone Carers Policy (additional 5 days of leave)
- Made the tone of our policies warmer and the language more inclusive. We renamed our Maternity policy as ‘Maternity/Pregnancy policy’ and made the language gender neutral.
- New online resources for colleagues and their line managers to guide them towards information and support (Parents & Carers One Stop Shop)