As a leader at work, you play an important role in supporting working mums. With so much to balance across work and home life, 92% of UK mums want their employers to consider some form of flexibility at work, such as flexible start and finish times or working from home arrangements. Working mums are juggling their work with childcare and household chores, while also navigating outdated expectations of how they should manage to do it all. It’s not easy. Luckily, a bit of support from their Motherloving managers can make a massive difference. To check out the full research paper, click here(open in new tab).

Maltesers, in partnership with Comic Relief, is working towards a future where women no longer face injustice. Together, we’re working to lighten the load for working mums and help women thrive.

1. Make the information on family friendly policies straightforward to access so it is simple for all prospective and expectant parents to know their rights.
2. Make it easy for parents to have conversations about parenting, work, and their future career progression.
3. Be a champion for parental leave policies, and support and encourage parents that wish to take shared parental leave. 
4. Facilitate and practice boundaries. When leaders practice boundary setting, they create a healthy culture for parents, and for everyone, particularly if you are a working mum  and/or have other responsibilities outside of work (this can be invaluable).
5. Ask mums what they need and keep checking in with them. No two mums needs are the same, and needs may change as time goes by.
6. Set times when meetings can and can’t happen. For example, keeping meetings between 10am and 4pm allows parents to navigate duties like childcare drop-offs and pick-ups.
7. Make it clear that flexibility won’t adversely affect promotions.
8. Hero people with different flex patterns by telling their stories and promoting them.
9. Consider putting different types of contracts together, such as a term-time contract or a primary caregiver contract.
10. Allow time to recharge at work. Provide spaces for people to rest and normalise this through your attitudes and policies.