Yearly Archives: 2021

Maternity and motherhood often still stand between women and achievement. According to a survey by the European Human Rights Commission, 44% of employers believe women should work for an organisation for at least a year before deciding to have children, and a third of employers believe new mothers are ‘less interested in career progression’. But when we step back and look around us, we see that this is just not true.A shining example of a woman successfully managing motherhood and a career is New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. The PM took six weeks’ maternity leave whilst in office in 2018 – New Zealand, of course, did not fall apart. Whilst on maternity leave, the PM even continued to read cabinet papers and consult on significant issues. The PM pointed out upon her return ‘I am not the first woman to multi-task. I am not the first woman to work and have a baby – there are many women who have done this before’. Far from being less ambitious, the PM was sworn in for a second term in November 2020 after a landslide victory.Ms Ardern was the second world leader to give birth in office. The first was Benazir Bhutto – the former and late Prime Minister of Pakistan. Ms Bhutto had to take a different approach, and when she had her daughter in 1990 she had kept her pregnancy secret even from her colleagues and returned to work the day after giving birth (something no woman should have to do). One of her cabinet ministers said: ‘suddenly we learn that she has not only gone and delivered democracy, she’s also delivered a baby’. The PM said ‘it was a defining moment, especially for young women, proving that a woman could work and have a baby in the highest and most challenging leadership positions’. I think it certainly was.It should be of no controversy then that the UK government is going to update the law so that the Attorney General can take six months’ maternity leave. The only thing which has surprised me about this announcement is that there was no provision in place for this before. It would be naïve to think that any government office is the sum of one person, so if we cannot afford for an individual to take time off to have a baby then that is a failing of a system. I hope that this high-profile change will show all UK employers that mothers can be, and want to be, in positions of power. There is still much work to be done to reverse stereotyping mothers in this country so we do not fall behind the rest of the world, but this is a start.

The pandemic is making employers and employees re-assess the value of the workplace. One factor, as Business Minister Paul Scully MP has pointed out, is rarely considered: are employees being subjected to domestic abuse?All employers have a duty of health and safety towards their employees which includes when employees are working from home. Employers need to really think about this and not assume everyone has the same home life. For example: an employee is desperate to go back to the office when they seem ok working from home – why is this? An employee is particularly distressed at the idea of being furloughed – could this be because they are scared of being at home? It is not implausible that an employee may be safer going to the office and risking contracting Covid-19 than staying at home with their abuser. Employers must be alive to this fact.It is good to see that the government is actively considering the impact of domestic abuse on employees and giving employers tips on how to recognise the signs, but the awareness campaign needs to go further. It is for all of us to spread the word that this is a real, sometimes life-threatening, issue which happens every day.Many victims of abuse are employed, meaning that they will likely have a boss they speak to every day. If that boss were trained to pick up the signs that something is wrong then a dialogue of how to combat the issue can start, and that is the first step to a way out for the victim. Everything starts with colleagues paying attention to each other more and talking about abuse openly. Employers have the power to start that dialogue today.Read Mr Scully’s full letter for advice on how employers can combat domestic abuse here. This includes free tips which employers can do almost immediately, and I would strongly recommend that employers read it.

The Chancellor makes some good points in this article, but he does seem to paint an idealistic picture of working in the City which does not necessarily reflect reality.The Chancellor is right that we are social beings, and we all miss even the minor interactions we used to have with colleagues in the office, but does that really mean we will be going back to the office full time and resuming our working lives as they once were? The Chancellor has pointed out that 75% of investment banks would let their staff work from home at least some of the time – I find that figure surprising (although I do not think this is representative of most sectors as investment banking is somewhat unique in its working style). I too am missing the buzz of central London, that ‘spark’ of creativity the office brings, and after work dinners and drinks with friends. But are we all really ready to give up the liberties working from home provides?It is a question for employers, too. The prospect of paying (often astronomical) overheads for prime London real estate only to have some of the workforce actually use that space is by no means a tempting one and is perhaps enough for some to close their premises altogether. Some employers may even find that their staff are even more productive when they are at home because a better work/life balance should go some way to preventing the ‘burn out’ which some London employers have historically struggled to prevent.I do not think that most London office workers will ever fully return to the office. Instead, I think we will see a new ‘hybrid’ way of working emerge which can take the best of our traditional working habits and of working from home. What that will actually look like, we simply do not know.