Family-friendly working is not a niche employee benefit. It is a business issue that affects talent attraction, retention, engagement and performance.
That was the clear message from Jane van Zyl, Chief Executive of Working Families, during her session at the Engage Employee Summit. Speaking about the need to see people as whole individuals – not simply employees – she challenged organisations to build flexibility and support around the realities of modern family and caring life.
“Who here is a parent?” she asked the room. “Who has caring responsibilities for adults? And who plans to have children?” The answer, effectively, was everyone. Family-friendly culture matters because almost every employee will need it themselves, or will work alongside someone who does.
One of the session’s central messages was that flexible working is often misunderstood. It is not synonymous with remote work.
For many place-based workers – including those in retail, logistics, healthcare and hospitality – working from home is not possible. Yet flexibility can still be designed into how, when and where work is organised. That may mean predictable shifts, compressed hours, job shares, adjusted start and finish times, part-time options or giving teams more input into rotas.
Jane highlighted Arnold Clark as an example of an employer making flexibility work in a place-based environment. By helping teams understand operational needs and decide who needs to be where, the organisation has created more flexibility without relying on homeworking.
The principle is simple: organisations should start with the job to be done, not an assumption about how it has always been done.
For working parents and carers, a lack of flexibility can narrow choices dramatically. Working Families’ 2023 research found that 40% of people receiving Universal Credit are in work, many in part-time roles and keen to remain employed. Yet formal childcare can be unaffordable or unavailable, while the 30 free childcare hours in England cover only 39 weeks of the year rather than the full 52.
That gap has a direct effect on careers. Many parents feel forced to reduce their hours, while others hesitate to move roles because they do not know whether a prospective employer will offer the flexibility they need.
Jane argued that employers can help by being more transparent. Rather than waiting for candidates to request accommodations, organisations should clearly state the types of flexibility available in their job adverts and on their careers pages. It is a practical step that can widen access to opportunity and strengthen an employer’s talent proposition.
The case for family-friendly working is not only about doing the right thing. It delivers measurable commercial value.
Flexible and inclusive job design can:
Jane shared the example of Zurich UK, which in 2019 began advertising every role as open to flexible, part-time or job-share arrangements. The insurer saw an increase in both the number and quality of applicants, alongside more applications from men, women and senior women. It also recorded a 10-point rise in engagement among colleagues already working part-time, strengthened retention and helped reduce its gender pay gap.
For Zurich, flexible hiring has become a clear business advantage rather than a compromise.
The session also examined the importance of equitable parental leave. Working Families’ research shows that seven in ten fathers take less than two weeks of paternity leave, largely because statutory provision is so poorly paid.
That has implications for families, equality and employers. More time for fathers and non-birthing parents to care for children helps establish stronger family bonds and can support more equal sharing of care over the longer term.
Jane pointed to Deloitte’s enhanced parental leave offer as a powerful example. From January 2025, the firm introduced 26 weeks of paid leave for fathers, matching its maternity provision. It has since achieved an 85% take-up rate across both senior consultants and more junior, lower-paid colleagues.
Beyond the headline figure, the policy is changing life choices. One father told Deloitte that he and his wife had believed they could not afford to have children while living in London; the enhanced leave made parenthood financially viable. It is a reminder that workplace policies can have a profound impact far beyond the office.
A truly family-friendly culture cannot be built around a narrow picture of family life. It must account for parents, carers of adults, single parents, blended families, kinship carers, adoptive parents and intergenerational households.
It should also recognise that employees’ circumstances can change quickly. Caring responsibilities may arise unexpectedly, and people need room to respond without fearing that their career will stall.
Jane’s own experience brought this to life. Earlier in her career, while rebuilding a relationship with her terminally ill father, a supportive manager enabled her to take a longer lunch break and adjust her working day. That simple act of flexibility was, she said, life-changing.
This is what human-centred employment looks like in practice: managers trusting people to deliver their work while also giving them the space to manage what matters beyond it.
Flexible working succeeds when it is intentional. Organisations need to think carefully about job design: what work must be done, where it needs to happen, when it needs to happen and who needs to collaborate.
TLT, another example shared during the session, doubled in size during the pandemic by recruiting talent able to work remotely. As expectations around office attendance continue to evolve, the firm is still asking the right questions: who needs to be in the office, when, and why? Its focus is not on preserving a policy for its own sake, but on maintaining a culture that helps people thrive.
That is the opportunity for employee experience leaders. Rather than treating flexibility as a concession, they can use it as a tool to create better-designed work, stronger teams and more sustainable performance.
There may never be a perfect “work-life balance”, but there can be workplaces that recognise people have responsibilities, ambitions and pressures beyond their job title.
Family-friendly cultures are built through transparent policies, thoughtful job design, supportive line managers and an understanding that flexibility takes many forms. Get those foundations right and organisations can attract wider talent, retain valuable people and create the conditions for employees to do their best work.
As Jane van Zyl’s session made clear, when work works for people’s lives, it works better for business too.
To register your interest for the 2027 Engage Employee Summit click here.