A year on from its first Future Of Work survey, Marie Claire UK has once again partnered with leading professional social media platform LinkedIn to produce a piece of ground breaking research on UK working women and the future of the workplace.
While there has been a slow return back to the office after many have spent the last 18 months working from home, the latest survey looks at flexible working. The research shows a resoundingly clear message that employers need to prioritise flexible working going forward.
52 per cent said they would turn down a job offer if the company didn’t offer the flexible working they required to maintain a work/life balance.
Half of those surveyed also said they would quit a job they already had if it didn’t offer them what they needed flexibility-wise.
The survey also found that 82 per cent of the women questioned said they would give up work while raising their children if their employer did not support them with flexibility. This comes on the back of huge call for the government to offer more support with childcare.
Speaking about the findings, Andrea Thompson, Editor-in-Chief of Marie Claire, said, “A year on from our first Future of Work survey with LinkedIn, what is clear from the latest research is that employers must acknowledge that flexibility is vital if they want to retain female talent and achieve genuine gender equality at work.”
“The alternative is women dropping out of the workforce at critical points in their career journeys.”
“While our study focussed specifically on women’s opinions, equality in the workplace can only happen when flexibility is perceived as something for all – women, men, parents and non-parents.”
“Why should caring responsibilities or work/life balance be perceived as a concern solely for women?”
Janine Chamberlin, UK Country Manager at LinkedIn, added, “We know that the pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on women and their careers – we can see it clearly in this research with Marie Claire and on our platform where women have come together over the last eighteen months to share their experiences, advice and support.”
“Encouraging staff to work flexibly if it suits them should be a top priority for employers, especially if they want to retain and nurture top female talent.”
“In this new world of work, for employers to remain attractive it’s going to be important for them to evolve their workplace policies to offer greater flexibility which people now expect, remove masculine-coded language from job descriptions which we know can put off female candidates from applying, and consider their benefits to allow for a better work-life balance.”
96 per cent of British parents say the government isn’t supporting them enough with childcare, according to a new mega survey.
The survey of over 20,000 parents in the UK, run by Mumsnet in partnership with a coalition of parenting and campaigning groups, revealed a sobering insight into the catastrophic impacts of childcare costs on the lives of parents and their children.
Of those surveyed, 97 per cent said that UK childcare is too expensive, with 83 per cent said that it is ‘much’ too expensive. 96 per cent of respondents also said the UK government doesn’t support parents enough with the cost and availability of childcare.
