Working Families’ Top Employers of 2023 already offer flexible working from day one

Employers in Working Families’ Benchmark survey have shown they are ready for the new flexible working legislation coming in 2024, with 86 per cent of entrants already offering flexible working from day one.

The UK’s national charity for working parents and carers prestigious list of Top Employers for Working Families 2023 includes a wide range of organisations from across sectors, including banking and finance, higher education, a local NHS Trust and two public sector bodies.

Working Families has announced its annual list of the top flexible and family-friendly employers in the UK. For the fourteenth year running, employers large and small from across the public, private, and third sectors have competed to gain a coveted place on the charity’s list of Top Employers for Working Families.

This year’s Top Ten Employers for Working Families – in alphabetical order – are:

• Audit Wales
• Citigroup
• Crown Prosecution Service
• Grant Thornton
• Imperial College London
• NatWest Group
• North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT)
• Pinsent Masons
• Senedd Cymru / Welsh Parliament
• Yorkshire Building Society

The Benchmark – which captured the experience of over 330,000UK employees across the organisations that took part— highlights trends in flexible and family-friendly policies and practices. This year the key findings include:

• 86 per cent of this year’s Benchmark entrants already offer flex from day one – showing that the best employers are already well-prepared for the new legislation coming in 2024.
• 92 per cent of employers assess some, or all, jobs to determine the potential for flexible working prior to advertising.
• 78 per cent of organisations provide details of the options to work flexibly on their website.
• Almost half (48 per cent) of employers are already using the ‘Happy to Talk Flexible Working’ strapline and logo on all their job adverts.

Jane van Zyl, CEO of Working Families, said:

“We are delighted with the standard of entries for this year’s Top Employers for Working Families list. These employers show they are leading the way in building family-friendly and flexible workplaces in the UK and are already ahead of the curve when it comes to implementing the changes needed to comply with the new flexible working legislation coming into practice next year. Almost nine out of ten of our Benchmark entrants are already offering flexible working as a day one right.

“It’s heartening to see that almost half of this year’s entrants are using our ‘Happy to Talk Flexible Working’ strapline and logo on all their job adverts, with a further fifth using it for some of their recruitment.”

Employers were assessed using Working Families’ Benchmark and were scored on four key areas to build a comprehensive picture of their flexible and family-friendly policies and practices that specifically support mothers, fathers, and carers. These are:

• integration to organisational strategy and culture – which looks at culture, attitude and how far flexible and family-friendly working practices have become embedded;
• policy – which looks at the creation, development and deployment of flexible and family-friendly working policies and their take-up;
• consistent practice – which considers how well flexible and family-friendly working is supported; and
• evidence and statistics – which looks at the effects of flexible and family-friendly working on the organisation, and their ability to understand those effects.