ESG in Action: Working better with Working Families: Flexibility in the workplace

Lottie Driver (00:02)

We know seven in 10 working parents consider jobs with more flexibility as much more desirable. So, it's helping you as a business to attract and retain brilliant people.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (00:14)

Before we begin, we wanted to acknowledge that since recording this episode, Working Families has announced that it will sadly be closing at the end of June 2026. We're grateful to Lottie Driver for taking part in this conversation and for the important work the organisation has led over many years to support working parents and carers.

We're pleased to be able to share this episode, which captures insights and perspectives that remain highly relevant for organizations looking to build more flexible, inclusive workplaces.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (00:50)

Welcome to ESG in Action. I'm Alex Holsgrove Jones, Knowledge Partner and ESG Lead at TLT, and today I'm joined by Lottie Driver, Relationship Manager at Working Families. Working Families is the UK's national charity for working parents and carers. They support parents and carers to understand their workplace rights, work with employers to build flexible and family workplaces, and drive policy and legal changes to deliver flexibility as the norm in the workplace.

We've worked closely with working families for several years and are one of the founding partners of their family-friendly workplace accreditation. I'm really pleased that you could join us, Lottie. Hello and welcome to the show.

Lottie Driver (01:33)

Thank so much Alex, I'm really really pleased to be here.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (01:36)

So Lottie, for our listeners who might not have heard of working families, can you explain a bit more about what you do and how you came to work with working families, what motivates you personally to do what you do?

Lottie Driver (01:51)

Yeah, sure. So, for anyone who's listening, who hasn't come across working families before, we're the UK's national charity supporting working parents and carers. So, there are sort of three prongs to our work, so what we want to do is want to see a world in which parents and carers don't face barriers in the workplace. And we know there's work that still needs to be done to do that. So, we've got three kind of prongs to our work. The first is we have a free legal advice service, which is a very, very heavily used, amazing resource for anyone in the UK who has parenting or care responsibilities to be able to make use of our helpline, or our help pages on our website.  

And the second prong is the employer services team. So that's the team that I sit in. So, we work really collaboratively with employers like yourselves at TLT to, so from employers who are already really progressive and family friendly, such as TLT who can get certified as being a family-friendly workplace - through to employers who are really at the beginning of that journey. They know that they're not close to being family-friendly or flexible yet, but they want to know what the first next steps could be. And then the third prong is our, we work really closely with government, with policymakers and leading academics to really understand what are the challenges that parents and carers are facing in the UK, and then how can we lobby for better solutions to those problems. When I then became a parent myself I realized that the family friendly flex for working is not like a nice to have - for me and our family it genuinely is a need to have and that's the case for so many parents of carers across the UK, and my background is in charity so I'm really driven by bringing about social impact.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (03:34)

Great. Well, thanks, Lottie. And if we just go back a little to what you said about the three prongs to working families, the individual support, the employer support and the policy support, how do all three of those work together? And why is it important to have that holistic approach to driving change?

Lottie Driver (03:51)

Yeah totally. So I think the three prompts work really really well because they feed into each other. As working families, we've been doing this for 45 years, I can tell you what's going on at the ground level through our help plan. I can tell you what's going on for employers and the real barriers that employers are coming up against and the challenges that they're having, and that can, you know, we can then pull all of that shared insight together to have the maximum impact in all of those strands. And then for example, I might be, you know, you'll be aware there's been more and more employers have been mandating more days back in the office recently, for example. So that's a trend that we've seen happening for the last year or so. So that's really helpful for me. I can just have a quick chat with one of our team in the Free Legal Advice Service and we can just talk about how much are you hearing that from your employer members who are predominantly employers who are trying to be really family friendly and flexible. And then we can have discussions about why some of those employers have taken that and what that looks like.

And then I can also share that back with my employment members to say, well, this is actually some of the challenges. This is that we see that people are leaving the workforce, for example, because they can't balance their work and caring so well when these barriers are put in place. So it's, they really do all work hand in hand, which is really interesting. Plus, I love hearing about the policy work because I think it's just really interesting.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (05:13)

Yeah, so getting all those perspectives and putting them all in the melting pot can really drive positive change, can't it? And obviously, flexibility has so many positive benefits for individuals. You've mentioned your personal benefits. But what impact can it have for organizations and why is flexibility good for business?

Lottie Driver (05:33)

Yes, so in my role as a relationship manager, I'm working with different contacts within an organisation. So sometimes that's HR directors and HR team, sometimes it's new network chairs for parents and carers network, sometimes it's those in your equality, diversity, inclusion teams, and sometimes it's all three. So, one of the biggest challenges that we often come across is we'll have really passionate people within those organisations who are saying, we're already doing lots of great things in this space, but actually there are some big gaps and I would love to help address them. But some of the bigger challenges are how can we convince others and some of those key decision makers that this isn't just a nice thing to do for people and a warm fuzzy hug to offer this family-friendly working, but actually this brings really tangible business benefits to our organization by being family-friendly and flexible and building a really inclusive workforce.

We, for that reason, one of the most used documents I use is a document that we call our business case for family-friendly flexible working. So, because we do a lot of research, we're looking at how can we then evidence it to those who are maybe not as sold in that this is necessarily a great thing to do. How can we evidence that this is really going to benefit the business? So, a few of those things I would pull out. if we look at the gender pay gap, as an example, lots of organisations obviously doing lots of work reduce your gender pay gap. But up to 80 % of the gender pay gap can be attributed to the motherhood penalty. So, this is just enormous and we can't build truly inclusive workplaces that prioritise gender equality and give women proper opportunities as well as men if we don't address the family-friendly piece and work to reduce that penalty. And there's so much that could go into that and that could be a whole other podcast episode, but that's one piece of the puzzle in terms of business benefits. But then there's so many others. So, we found that 77 % of line managers, for example, say that flexible working increases productivity, so flexibility is really good for those with care and responsibility.  

So, we're talking here broadly about care responsibilities. That could be someone who's a parent, that could be someone who's a carer, that could be someone who's both, it's what we call a sandwich carer - so someone who's looking after children and a parent, for example. So flexibility is really good for them, but flexibility is also really good for most people, as most people really want flexibility at work. And that might be to balance care responsibilities, but it might also be really supports their wellbeing. It might be because they're neurodivergent and they really prefer having some working from home, for example, or they work best in that space. So many reasons why employees really, people really, really want flexibility. So, in terms of increasing productivity and 65 % of managers see Flex as a tool for better equity diversion and inclusion in the workplace, which is kind of what I've just touched on.  

We also know that this really matters – so part of introducing the family friendly workplace certification that we introduced just over a year ago with TLT, who were a founding partner, which is just a brilliant thing, and part of that was we know from our free legal advice service, people want to know if they're looking at applying for a role, are they talking the talk? Are they actually walking the walk? How can I know that I'm going to go somewhere and I'm actually going to be well supported? So that's part of it as well. We know seven in 10 working parents consider jobs with more flexibility as much more desirable.  

So, it's helping you as a business to attract and retain brilliant people. And we know that those things encourage loyalty and reduce turnover. They have a positive impact on wellbeing, so reducing sickness, there's so many business benefits that are so consistently attached to family-friendly flexible working.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (09:25)

Yeah, so, I mean, you've only touched on a few, I'm sure there are so so many more ⁓ benefits to flexibility. But what about the practicalities of implementing flexible working for an organisation? What are the key considerations when implementing that sort of policy?

Lottie Driver (09:42)

Yeah, it's a really good question Alex because one of the values of working families is that we're pragmatic and we want to be practical. So we don't want to be, you know, really idealistic about this – this would be brilliant - but actually what does practically look like? And that will also depend on the nature of the organisation. some of the employers who win our best practice awards, for examples, are tiny SMEs or they’re charities with very little spare cash. So you don't need to have a lot of money to be able to do the things, but you do need to show some creativity in your approach. I think when I'm supporting employers to think about making policy changes, I think something that's really useful is can you really understand what is best practice? What does gold standard look like for this? What are other employers doing?  

And that's one of the ways that we help employers through employee membership and through the certification is helping you to benchmark what you're offering compared to other organisations. So you can see where those gaps are. And then also how can we hear through events, through case studies, for example, or through just facilitating conversation with another employer member, what another organisation has attributed in terms of business benefits to that policy change when they've brought it about.  

And there's a broad umbrella that we're thinking about with this stuff, so we often think when we talk about family-friendly flexible working, often we think about that when someone's had a baby and then that initial return. And that's obviously a really crucial moment for a parent - you're a different person when you come back after your parent leave than you were before you went on it, it's just a massive transformation of your life. But there's also so much more to it, and we're talking about the duration of, what about parenting when you've got teenagers? What about parenting when you're going through the exams? What about when you're caring and your caring responsibilities change, or increase or decrease? So, we're also thinking about things like best practice support for fertility. How do you support colleagues who are going through the menopause? How do you support colleagues with all manners different caring responsibilities? What does that look like for best practice? Pathways to parenthood for example. So what happens if colleagues are adopting a child or going through surrogacy to expand their family.  

So, there's wide breadth of kind of policy changes that you can look at. And, but I think that's why it's really helpful to hear from other employers to understand what are they doing? Why have they done it? And was it a good thing? And what could what do they think about bringing about that and invariably, and the answer will be yes, it was a good thing, and here's the reasons why.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (12:23)

Yeah, and that pooling and resources, Lottie, is so crucial, isn't it? Because as you say, Flexibility isn't the same for everybody. Everybody's needs are not the same. And, you know, there is that maybe that preconception that, you know, we do things for people returning from parental leave. But if you're not somebody who fits the traditional mould of what a carer might look like. How does the organization support you even in speaking up and saying you need flexibility?

Lottie Driver (12:52)

What you're touching on there, Alex, is that perceived ⁓ and real, really difficult thing where so many people, so many of us with caring responsibilities are worried that we're going to be seen as less committed, if we share our caring responsibilities or less suitable for promotion. An employer can really support people through offering supportive policies and practices.  

And I think it's good for us all to recognise, I don't know, there's an analogy that is often shared - I often see it on LinkedIn - so it's this idea that if you're a parent or carer, and you're juggling work and caring, you're juggling lots of different balls, but some of them are plastic and some of them are glass. You're going to drop some balls, and this analogy is around try and drop the plastic ones, not the glass ones. But if you drop a glass one, it's going to smash - it's a bigger fallout. So that could be something like, a glass one could be you need to pick up your child from school or after school. That one can't drop, but maybe something else at work could be moved over to tomorrow, whatever that looks like. Or when your child is sick, you need to go and get them.  

But I've been pondering this, this has been something that's swirling around my head for the last few weeks because I'm thinking, that's really helpful, I think, but also it's good for us to be aware and have in our minds, that no two parents or carers are in the same boat like you mentioned earlier. And so actually, some parents and carers have more glass balls than others. And that could be for any number of reasons, so it could be that you are a sandwich carer and by nature, you're caring for two or three people potentially. And so more of that is more fragile and you don't want to drop those things that are really important. It could be because your child is neurodivergent and really hates going to school and it's such a battle. Or maybe after school club is just actually too much for them, so that becomes not an option. So you've got another glass ball, or your child is disabled and you've got lots of medical appointments. How are you supposed to weave those in around your work commitments? But those need to happen- they're really important. We need really supportive cultures but also let's look at really supportive policies.  

So, flex is really important then for reducing the number of glass balls that hit the ground, but also policies are. So those are things like pay time off for dependents, lots of really practical things that can be in place to just support and help that employee manage it all, which also brings the business benefits too, but also is really supportive of that person's wellbeing.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (15:26)

I mean, you mentioned earlier, let's just go back a little bit to the benefits to a business because, if people feel valued, they give value, don't they? So if you feel that you have flexibility, then you will probably put in more work in the long run. So you get that employee and colleague loyalty to the business. I mean, you said earlier that turnover is reduced in flexible workplaces. But also, we have to acknowledge that it's not, and I love this term, Lottie, a warm fuzzy hug. It makes business sense, doesn't it? It builds resilient and sustainable businesses. But what would you say to an organization that's a little bit sceptical about the benefits of flexible working?

Lottie Driver (16:13)

Yeah, totally. So I would say in short, you will miss out and you are missing out now and you will continue to miss out if you don't adopt these kind of practices because the nature of the beast is, there are really brilliant people out there who, like you're saying Alex, want to give 100 % of their energies at work - who are skilled, talented, and it's also true that they have some caring responsibilities. And if you're not offering the culture, the policies, if you're not ensuring consistent practice, if you're not empowering your line managers to really live this out, and to trust and believe in people and treat them like adults, then you will be losing out on brilliant people and they will be going to somewhere else. And you'll be losing out on that loyalty, you'll be losing out on a diverse set of thinking that can really bring a massive benefit to your organisation.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (17:12)

Great, thanks Lottie. I'm sure we could carry on this discussion for many hours, just conscious of time. We always like to leave our listeners with one practical action that they could take away and do in the next month or so to drive real change. So, if you had to give everyone one thing that they can take away and do, what would it be?

Lottie Driver (17:34)

My takeaway would be, so one of our ambassadors is a great guy called Elliot Ray. If you haven't come across him, I just encourage everyone to look him up. He talks a lot about parenting out loud, so that's a kind of term he's coined. And what that means is, it's really tempting sometimes to hide our caring responsibilities for the reasons that we've talked about. You're worried about how it may make you look. And so, it's quite easy to, instead of putting the pick-up in your diary for school, pretend it's a meeting or just not give your reason for why you're slipping out or the fact that your child is sick and you've got the school, you've got the call from school or nursery and you've got to run out.  

But instead, if we can all move towards parenting out loud and doing that loudly and proudly. So, talk about your parenting and caring responsibilities at work and do that in an unapologetic way. You have so many brilliant things to bring to the organisation, you don't need to apologise for having these care responsibilities. There's lots of great things that come with that. But yeah, talking about it, and then that also gives other people around you perceived permission that they can do it to. And that's just going to help build the culture that we all want to work in. If you are a dad, if you're a senior, this is an even more exciting opportunity for you to go out and parent out loud and to just be part of the conversation.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (18:57)

Great, thanks Lottie so much for joining us in this episode. It's been so interesting to learn more about what you and working families do to drive flexibility in the workplace. We need to remember it's not just a warm fuzzy hug, it's essential for businesses to thrive. And I love the expression parent out loud. So hopefully everyone can take that away and be a bit louder in their parenting and caring responsibilities.

Lottie Driver (19:22)

Brilliant. Thank you so much for having me, Alex.

Alex Holsgrove Jones (19:25)

And thank you to our listeners for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe and share. And until next time, keep driving positive change and putting ESG into action.