UK Employment Hub 

In the week after Father’s Day in the UK, insurance provider Aviva commissioned a report into Shared Parental Leave (SPL) polling 1,000 fathers and 1,000 mothers with children aged 16 and under nationwide. Despite the legislation on SPL being in force since 2015 and the recent government campaign “Share the Joy”, intended to raise awareness (which we talked about here), half of working fathers haven’t heard of SPL. This is particularly disappointing as nine out of 10 parents are reported as believing mums and dads should be given equal parental leave.

The results of the report tell us that 86 per cent of fathers would have liked to take more time off at the arrival of their children, but felt restricted by financial factors and employer constraints. The report’s authors at Aviva commit to an equal parental leave policy entitling male and female employees to 26 weeks each on full basic pay on the arrival of a child. However, not all employers have equalised their offering.

In the “2018 Modern Families Index Summary Report”, Working Families (the UK’s work-life balance charity) recommends “day one” parental and paternity leave rights in new employment, as well as properly paid, extended, standalone paternity leave for fathers, in an effort to tackle gendered assumptions about who works and who cares for children. Linking this to improving the gender pay gap, Working Families suggests that improved paternity leave will mean that fathers will be more likely to use it and thereafter be more involved in their children’s care throughout their life, having a knock-on effect on the participation and remuneration of women in the workforce.

Despite these findings the government has, regrettably, recently announced that, whilst it accepts the need for change in this area, calls by the Women and Equalities Committee for new measures on paternity leave and pay, SPL and driving cultural change have been roundly rejected. The Chair of the Committee, Maria Miller MP, said: “It is surprising that the government’s response does not refer to its own recently published research on the gender pay gap which found that if men and women took similar amounts of unpaid family leave the gender pay gap would decrease by 13 per cent … we will continue to press for reform.”

If you need any advice around family-friendly working policies and/or improving your organisation’s gender pay gap, please get in touch with your contact at Dentons.

One of the biggest barriers to gender equality and pay parity is a continuing resistance by employers to embrace agile working.

A recent joint study from flexible working specialists, Timewise, and Deloitte sets out the following five step plan to help employers establish and implement new working cultures with the aim of improving pay parity between men and women:

• challenge the status quo: leaders must provoke cultural change
• emphasise the value of male and female role models: flexible working should be gender neutral
• ask “why not” rather than “why”: design flexibility into the job
• provide the permission and tools to support a flexible workforce: influence the attitudes and actions of managers
• measure the success of flexible working: collect the data

The study, dubbed a “Manifesto for Change, indicates that 30 per cent of workers who work flexibly feel they have less status and importance as a result.  A quarter of 2,000 people felt they missed opportunities to further their career because of this.  By comparison, 73% of respondents wanted their workplaces to reward people for the job they did rather than the number of hours they spent there.

The study identified that barriers to flexible working practices are largely cultural and often come down to the views and behaviours of managers.  Most respondents agreed that companies needed to recruit and train managers who truly support their team achieving a work/life balance, and implement a range of suitable flexible working options.

The clear message from the study was that “Employers need to catch up with the needs and aspirations of the modern workforce, or risk getting left behind.”  Now is the time to review flexible and agile working policies and practices and refresh the message to managers and employees alike that agile working practices are positive and here to stay.

Fathers must be given drastically improved rights or the Government’s shared parental leave policy risks failing entirely, experts have warned.

The policy, three years old this week, is meant to allow fathers to be more involved in their children’s early years and mothers to return to the workplace sooner.

But the latest official estimates suggest that as little as 2pc of eligible parents have so far taken up the offer, with a lack of awareness and equal pay issues being blamed.

Read more here – https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/could-paying-dads-stay-home-turn-round-failing-shared-parental/

It’s been a busy few weeks for judgments; we round up the most recent discrimination cases:

When is cancer a disability?

What happens if an employer does not know an employee is pregnant when deciding to dismiss her but finds out before the dismissal takes effect?

Was forfeiture of LTIP awards unlawful age discrimination?

Click here to read the round up.

In this issue we look at some of the key employment law developments that have been taking place over the past month. In our case law review we take a look at ‘deemed disabilities’ under the Equality Act following a recent EAT judgment. We also look at what happens if an employer does not know an employee is pregnant when deciding to dismiss but finds out before the dismissal takes effect. The impact of the new taxation of termination payments coming into force from 6 April 2018 and the sponsor licence reporting process to be mindful of when involved in mergers and acquisitions are also covered.

https://www.dentons.com/en/insights/newsletters/2018/march/29/uk-employment-law-roundup/uk-employment-law-round-up-march-2018

2018 is a momentous year, in that it marks 100 years since British women were given the right to vote. Things have moved on a bit since 1918, and we can safely say that there have been many positive developments since then aimed at addressing the issue of gender inequality in the workplace.

Yet here we are, in this historic centenary year, reading daily accounts of high-profile cases of sex discrimination and harassment. Take, for example, the BBC “not doing equal pay” and the sexual harassment allegations arising from the notorious Presidents Club dinner. Inequality in the workplace remains a real issue, and against that backdrop one key question needs to be considered: are the UK’s sex discrimination laws still fit for purpose?

This was the question that the Fawcett Society (the UK’s leading charity campaigning for gender equality and women’s rights), together with a panel of legal and policy experts, was recently tasked with answering. Following a nine-month review, the Society has now made a number of recommendations on the following topics.

Read more here