Being a parent is tough. It requires a great deal of sacrifice and compromise. Your spare time will be dedicated to caring for your children, and much of the rest spent working to feed the extra mouths. Work/life balance is important, but it can be difficult to maintain when you’re raising children. 

Often, we find it’s women who get more leeway when it comes to arranging their work schedule around their children. It’s not quite the same for men, and we see fathers pigeonholed by age-old gender stereotypes which stipulate that the man should be the breadwinner while the woman takes care of the children. Is this really how things should be in our modern world? Does it leave dads struggling with work/life balance? Let’s find out. 

Why is Work/Life Balance Important?

Work/life balance is all about prioritising what’s important. Your job shouldn’t interfere with your other commitments, and your personal life shouldn’t spill over into your professional life. 

This is easier said than done. It can be all too easy to take your work home with you after a busy day or to go into work tired after a late night out. However, it’s important to establish a distinction between your personal and professional life, it can help prevent you from feeling overwhelmed and overworked.

Burnout is a serious issue that can be caused by long-term stress. It commonly occurs among people who have a poor work/life balance, and it can have long-lasting, damaging effects. With a YouGov study revealing that over half of UK residents report feeling stressed at work, it’s unsurprising that burnout is a serious problem among today’s workforce. 

It's clear to see that work/life balance is important, but unfortunately, many people still feel overworked and that they don’t have enough personal time. Dads, in particular, often suffer in silence as a result of an inadequate work/life balance. Why is this?

Dads Are Taking More Responsibility for Childcare

Traditional gender roles involved men going to work and women staying home to look after the children and take care of the house. Today, these are harmful, outdated stereotypes and do not represent the typical modern family. 

Couples today take more of a collaborative approach to raising children. Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that, throughout the pandemic, the amount of unpaid childcare carried out by men and women was nearly equal. 

Since then, the scales have tipped back towards women, who are now doing more unpaid childcare. However, men are still doing more than in the past, which coupled with the fact that men spend, on average, more time at work, means there is often more work/life balance-related risk for fathers. 

In addition, ONS research has shown that 33.3% of women have special arrangements with their work in place when it comes to childcare, while only 23.6% of men can say the same. This only makes things tougher for dads who are attempting to juggle their professional duties and their parental responsibilities. 

As a business owner, the health and well-being of your staff should be your top priority. A happy and healthy workforce is a productive workforce, you’re going to struggle to retain employees and maintain performance levels if you cannot offer a positive work/life balance. 

How can you ensure the fathers in your workforce are not at risk of burnout and stress? Find out below. 

How to Help Dads Manage Work/Life Balance

If you’re looking to offer more support for the dads in your workforce, speaking to a HR consultancy team should be your first port of call. 

A HR team will work alongside you and your team to develop the best strategy for ensuring all employees can maintain a positive work/life balance, reducing the risk of burnout or work-related stress. 

One particularly effective approach can be to offer hybrid working schemes. Allowing fathers to work at home for a set number of days per week can give them the opportunity to manage childcare more effectively. 

Other ways in which you can offer greater work/life balance for dads in your team is through things like flexitime, where the start and end times of the working day can be adjusted, and compressed hours, which means employees can work longer hours for a shorter number of days. 

What these approaches will do is offer your employees greater flexibility. They’ll be able to more effectively manage their time to cater to their parental responsibilities, and they will be able to take the time to care for their children without it impacting their work. 

Conclusion 

We still have a long way to go in ensuring everyone has a positive work/life balance, particularly for fathers. However, by speaking to a HR consultancy team, you can offer fathers in your workforce the support they need to successfully manage their roles in the workplace and as a parent. 

The rights of fathers in the workplace is already a concept that isn’t spoken about as widely as it should be. For example, whilst fathers have access to paternity leave, it’s usually paid at £172.48 per week or 90% of your weekly salary - whichever is lower. Another issue that needs to be discussed in the modern workplace is flexible working for dads. The idea is often looked more favourably upon for parents in general rather than any employee, but even within that barrier for entry fathers aren’t always given the same courtesy that mothers are when it comes to flexible working. This could be due to the employee or the manager not knowing that flexible working for dads an option or the manager not being willing to consider it. But there are a lot of benefits to offering flexible working for dads that ultimately go unnoticed.

In this article, we’re talking about why that is, why it needs to change, and what you, as a father, can do about it. 

It matters because it creates a less stressed staff member

According to a recent HSE Labour Force survey, 1,780 cases looked at over a 12-month period saw staff members reporting mental health issues like depression, stress, anxiety, and burnout. With a flexible working schedule, staff of all backgrounds can better balance their work and home life, without factors like commuting, scheduling around work, toxic work environments, and other external circumstances getting in the way of their productivity.

And this is mutually beneficial to the child, both parents and the employer. With flexible working for dads, the employer gets a staff member that isn’t interrupted by problems, isn’t worrying about things other than work while on the clock, isn’t stressed that there isn’t someone else there, and will therefore be more productive when working. 

It matters because most fathers are not aware of their rights

The UK laws are clear on the rights of the father in the workplace, and flexible working comes into that. Fathers have the right to ask and employers have to be clear on what they must be willing to consider when it comes to flexible working.

According to Work, Employment and Society from the British Sociological Association, 30% of fathers aren’t aware they have the right to ask for flexible working for dads and 81% are not aware they are eligible for a job share.  

Fathers, mothers, guardians, and any other employees all have the legal right to request flexible working. According to the UK Gov website, employers must “deal with requests in a reasonable manner”, which includes holding a meeting to discuss it with the employee wherein they will weigh up the advantages and disadvantages and the need to offer an appeal process. 

It matters because it creates a less stressful work environment

There are plenty of advantages to the employer and the employee in offering a flexible working schedule, and flexible working for dads is no exception. For parents specifically, it allows for a greater work-life balance in a world where school runs and childcare don’t line up with a 9-5 schedule. However, more generally, employees see a better life balance and working conditions.  

Offering flexible working for dads and other employees will help improve employee engagement, increase productivity and ultimately retain the best talent.

Conclusion

Flexible working for dads is a concept that aids everyone, whether you’re a father, a mother, a child or an employer. Offering flexible working for dads not only rebalances home and work lives but creates a less stressed and moree productive employee.

Conflict in the workplace can be a serious issue. It can cause significant disruption and can lead to employees feeling stressed, demotivated, and disillusioned. Managing employee conflict can be difficult, but doing so effectively is essential and is a cornerstone of successful business management. 

Managing conflict in the workplace requires careful monitoring and excellent interpersonal skills. To help you maintain a positive working environment, we’ve written up a guide and detailed the best practices for managing employee conflict. Find out more below.  

Encourage Communication 

As a business owner, one of the most beneficial things you can do is to foster an open environment where your employees are free to communicate and speak their minds. Members of your team should feel comfortable bringing issues to you when and as they arise. This way, you’ll be able to take steps to prevent situations from escalating and causing disruption to your business. 

This can offer your business several advantages, it can help boost employee morale and productivity and create a friendlier, more welcoming atmosphere that will improve the culture within the business

Active Listening 

If an employee brings a conflict issue to you, you must know how best to handle their complaint and ensure they feel listened to and understood. 

Active listening is a communicative approach that is designed to listen to the words somebody says and understand them on a deeper, more meaningful level. The key to active listening is the word ‘active’, you need to be an active participant in the conversation rather than just a passive listener. 

There are several components to an active listening approach, learning what these are is essential and will allow you to better hear and understand the problems your employees bring to you. These components are:

• Encourage: show signs of interest to encourage your employee to continue sharing
• Question: ask questions to clarify information and get more details
• Repeat: repeat statements in your own words to demonstrate understanding and confirm meanings
• Reflect: confirm the feelings conveyed to demonstrate emotional understanding and empathy
• Remain neutral: do not pass judgement and instead act as an understanding listener offering reinforcement and encouragement. 

Active listening is a crucial tool when managing employee conflict. It can be used to understand the details of a situation in a calm and collected way, and it will make your employees feel like they are being listened to, encouraging them to share more issues in the future. 

When listening to two sides of a conflict between employees, active listening is vital as it will ensure you are not perceived to be taking sides or showing favouritism, and you’ll be able to assess the conflict in an objective, neutral way. 

Identify Underlying Problems 

No matter how open and effective communication is in your business, there will still be times when employees don’t share their concerns.  As a manager r, you need to be attuned to the mood and atmosphere of your workplace. If you can sense tension or friction between employees, this could indicate that there are unresolved conflict issues or disagreements bubbling under the surface. 

It can be difficult to know how to approach things if you sense that there are underlying conflict problems, but the best way is usually through clear communication. Speak to your employees and ask if anything is troubling them at work and do your best to address any issues they might raise.  

Know When to Take Action 

Managing employee conflict is all about knowing when to step in and when not to. Small disagreements and differences are part and parcel of the working experience. Often, these are perfectly normal and healthy, they can teach employees how to put aside their differences and work together towards a shared goal. 

If there are small disagreements taking place, there’s no need for you as a manager to step in. In fact, doing so can have a negative effect, it can make you seem like a micro-manager, which can result in reduced employee productivity. 

On the other hand, you need to be ready to step in when disagreements escalate into full-blown conflict, or when one party is being mistreated or bullied. Knowing how to differentiate between these different kinds of situations is one of the most important parts of managing employee conflict. 

It’s also vital that you know when you might need extra help. If employees are threatening to quit or if there are serious conduct issues taking place, enlisting the support of a HR team can offer you the expert advice and guidance you need to successfully navigate what can be a volatile situation. 

Take a Collaborative Approach 

The ultimate aim when managing employee conflict is to come to a mutually beneficial agreement that all involved parties are satisfied with. 

As we mentioned earlier, conflict can be incredibly disruptive and can have wide-ranging implications for your business. It’s in your and your employees’ interests to come to a mutual agreement. This can be difficult to achieve but is essential to ensure no party is left feeling aggrieved or unfairly treated. 

Involve your employees when it comes to devising conflict resolution ideas. Try to find some common ground and agree on a course of action together. By working as a team to resolve the issue, you will help prevent the same situation from happening again and encourage cooperation and collaboration. 

Conclusion

Effectively managing employee conflict is a core skill for all l business owners and managers. Know how to read situations and how to talk to your employees. You must also be able to decide when you should or shouldn’t step in, and you should always consider speaking to a HR consultancy team to help successfully resolve issues in your workplace. 

Diversity and inclusion are terms we’re hearing more and more in today’s world. As we strive to foster a more tolerant and welcoming society, individuals and organisations alike must focus on promoting the idea of diversity and inclusion and to eradicate discrimination and prejudice.  As a business owner, having a diverse workforce can offer some excellent advantages. We’ve listed some of the benefits of diversity and inclusion in the workplace below and discussed how you can ensure your business isn’t missing out on them. 

We have the best opportunity we have ever had to have a diverse range of talent in our business – for many roles people can work anywhere, removing physical barriers that many disadvantaged groups suffered from prior to the pandemic.

Innovative Ideas

When running your own business, being one step ahead of the competition is no doubt one of your top priorities. No matter what sector you are in, staying abreast of the latest techniques and technological developments is vital and will ensure you are not being left behind by your rivals. 

Your business must be dynamic and constantly looking to innovate and improve. This is easier said than done, it requires a dedicated and driven workforce to push your business on to new heights. 

One of the biggest benefits of diversity and inclusion in the workplace is the capability they give your business for innovation and growth. A diverse team will be able to draw on a range of different experiences and areas of expertise, which means your workforce will be less prone to tunnel vision and more capable of looking at things from a fresh perspective. This can give your business a fantastic edge over competitors and can keep things from becoming stale and repetitive. 

Improved Performance

Owning a business means constantly having to solve problems. Often, the decisions you make can have a massive impact on your business and can affect everything from sales figures to brand reputation. 

Your team is there to support and guide you as you make the best decisions for the business. Perhaps one of the most important benefits of diversity and inclusion is that your team will be better placed to solve problems effectively and efficiently. 

Research from McKinsey & Company revealed that companies with more diverse workforces are 25% more likely to have greater profitability. This clearly demonstrates the benefits of diversity and inclusion and illustrates how diverse teams are more capable of navigating complex business decisions. 

Promoting diversity within your business can see significant improvement across a range of key metrics and propel your business on to new heights. 

Happier Workforce

Keeping your employees productive is key if you want your business to grow and succeed. Your employees need to feel happy and appreciated in the workplace if you want them to remain motivated, ambitious, and dedicated to taking the business forward. Fostering a diverse and inclusive environment will make employees feel more welcome and more secure in their roles, which will reflect in improved performance. 

In addition, a diverse workforce means your company will be more successful at attracting the best talent. Diversity is an increasingly important attribute that job seekers look for when weighing up offers, so ensure your business promotes diversity at every level to appeal to the best talent. 

What’s more, a diverse and inclusive business will see improved employee retention rates. This is one of the most critical benefits of diversity and inclusion, it can help you keep your best employees and prevent them from being headhunted by your competitors. 

Improved Brand Image

Whether you are a B2C or B2B company, the image and reputation of your brand are of critical importance. Consumer priorities and preferences are constantly changing, your business must be progressive and forward-thinking to meet shifting consumer expectations. 

One of the biggest benefits of diversity and inclusion in the workplace is the improved ability to appeal to modern customer bases. Gen Z is an incredibly diverse demographic and is more aware of issues of discrimination and social justice. This is reflected in their shopping habits, with 76% of Gen Z consumers citing diversity as an important value they look for in brands. Establishing a diverse workforce can make it easier to target these modern consumer groups. 

Furthermore, promoting diversity can significantly boost your brand image and reputation in the eyes of consumers and other business partners. This is one of the most valuable benefits of diversity and inclusion and will open up new opportunities and possibilities for your business. 

How to Diversify Your Workforce

Talking about the benefits of diversity and inclusion is one thing, effectively taking advantage of them is another. If you want to diversify your workforce and reap the rewards of an inclusive work environment, enlisting the services of a HR consultancy team can be an excellent approach. 

A HR team can work to promote diverse workplace practices and implement inclusive hiring policies. This is an incredibly effective way of ensuring your business is welcoming and open to all which will future-proof your company and guarantee that it is ready to meet the expectations of an evolving market landscape.  

Conclusion

There are many benefits of diversity and inclusion, all of which are essential if you want your business to be a success. Speak to a HR consultancy team to discuss how best to diversify your business to ready it for the future. 

Unfortunately, many businesses are so focussed on revenue and customer retention they forget the important role people play in their business and the need for good HR support. Small businesses in particular often maintain that they can’t justify the cost of employing a HR person and often have a PA or Finance person managing HR activities.

This is far from an ideal scenario. Ignoring HR or putting it on the back burner is ill-advised, it can have serious and long-term implications for you, your employees and your business. One approach to HR that we’ve seen become more popular in recent years is the use of a HR retainer. Let’s take a closer look at what a HR retainer is and then discuss how it can help your business save money.

What is a HR Retainer?

The traditional idea of HR is a dedicated department within a business or company. While this is certainly still the case among many major brands, it is by no means the only way of accessing and utilising HR services. Smaller companies may not have the finances or the resources to establish, staff, and maintain an effective and functioning HR department. For these businesses, outsourcing HR can be a far more affordable and practical approach. 

With a HR retainer, businesses can access HR services as and when needed. Rather than setting up a dedicated department, businesses can implement sound HR practices and policies using an external, expert provider. A HR retainer is a type of monthly rolling contract that can be reviewed and updated to suit the changing needs of your business. Let’s discuss how a HR retainer can help your business save money.

Tailored HR Services 

A HR retainer can be fully customised and tailored to suit your business. You can choose to have the HR team come into your office on specific days of the week, or you can opt for unlimited access to a HR helpline.  Modern businesses must be flexible and adaptable to changing markets and consumer behaviour. With a HR retainer, you can ensure your HR services can adapt and scale with your business in an efficient and cost-effective way.

Key Advice and Guidance 

HR Consultancy businesses are made up of highly knowledgeable, expert staff with years of industry experience. By outsourcing your HR to such a firm, your business will benefit enormously from the advice and guidance they can provide. 

Whether you are reviewing salaries and benefit programmes, building the culture, restructuring your business for future growth, or carrying out redundancies and exit interviews, having a HR retainer in place will give you a trusted and reliable partner to ensure all procedures are handled correctly.

Keep up to Date With Employment Law

Employment law and regulations are in place to safeguard employees and to ensure they are not exploited by their employers. As a business owner, it is absolutely vital that you are operating within the confines of the law. Failure to do so can see you face financial penalties or legal action, which could have serious long-term consequences for your business. 

Employment law changes frequently. For the busy modern business owner, it can be difficult to keep up. With a HR retainer, an expert HR team will regularly review your employee handbook and business practices to ensure you are adhering to the latest regulatory requirements.

Attract and Retain Talent 

A business is only as good as its employees. Without the industry’s top talent on your side, you’ll never be able to set yourself apart from your competitors and establish your business as a true sector leader.  A HR team will help you develop a competitive salary and benefits package, as well as establish clear and defined career progression paths to help you attract the very best candidates. 

Flexible work practices are increasingly important, with a Harvard Business Review study revealing that 88% of workers look for flexible work options when job-hunting. By working with a HR team, you can implement modern policies such as flexible working to make your business an attractive option for prospective candidates and give you an edge over competitors. 

Retaining employees is just as important as attracting them. With a HR team, you can devise employee engagement strategies to guarantee that your team feels satisfied and motivated. Furthermore, a HR team can deal with grievance management issues, working to settle disputes in a sensitive manner to prevent further disruption to your employees and your business. 

Constantly hiring and onboarding new staff can be a laborious process that significantly drains time and resources. A HR retainer can give your business the help it needs to bring in the best talent and retain them for years to come.

Conclusion

As a business owner, having a HR team in place is critical. While your business may not have the resources available to establish a dedicated in-house HR department, that doesn’t mean it should be forgotten about. Contact a HR Consultancy and utilise an HR retainer to help your business become an employer of choice and ultimately save your business money.