Guidance

What works to reduce the gender pay gap: family friendly policies infographic (tiles)

Published 1 March 2019

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

© Crown copyright 2019

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One of the biggest drivers of the gender pay gap is that women tend to spend more time out of the labour market or work part time, often due to caring responsibilities.

Family friendly policies, including flexible working, enhanced parental leave and additional childcare provision are the key tools to enable more equal sharing of work and childcare responsibilities between men and women.

Evidence shows that these actions can improve your family friendly offer and help to close the gender pay gap

Flexible working

  • champion the change you want to see by highlighting managers and senior leaders who work flexibly or share caring responsibilities

  • clearly advertise flexible working options to new and existing staff

  • during recruitment think about designing the role to support flexible working

  • provide training to line managers so they can support their teams to work flexibly

  • discuss your flexible working offer with staff and keep options under review

  • normalise flexible working for male employees

  • think about how you could improve your current flexible working offer by introducing more options – for example job-sharing or working remotely

Sharing of childcare

  • champion the change you want to see by highlighting managers and senior leaders who work flexibly or share caring responsibilities

  • clearly communicate your parental leave options and support for new parents

  • highlight the government’s childcare support and any additional support you offer

  • offer enhanced parental pay for mothers and fathers

  • keep in touch with employees on parental leave about training and development, and discuss the support available for when they come back to work

  • be proactive in providing information to new parents

  • encourage employees to take their full paternity leave entitlement or shared parental leave

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