Father friendly workplaces
Background
Barriers identified for men
Creating father-friendly workplaces
Background
For work and family policies to be successful, policies need to be tailored to meet the needs of men as well as women, and the workplace culture should be accepting of men in their role as fathers.
Cultural barriers in the workplace and community have traditionally prevented men from being encouraged to access working arrangements for parenting or family reasons. Research has indicated that being an involved parent is becoming increasingly important for fathers and that commitment to paid work forms a major barrier to paternal involvement.
Apart from introducing policies that may help both mother and fathers balance their work, family and lifestyle responsibilities, the creation of a father-friendly workplace requires intervention that goes beyond the introduction of these policies.
There should be an emphasis on education and communication regarding the importance of work-family balance for men and women. In addition, it is important to ensure that the workplace culture supports all employees to use these policies.
Barriers identified for men
A number of barriers to men using work and family policies have been identified, including:
- Attitudes of management including senior management that work and family policies really apply to women and are available to men only in emergencies.
- Lack of information and communication to staff regarding eligibility for policies
- A workplace culture which discourages taking leave and in which loyalty and commitment are demonstrated through working long hours.
- Companies operating in an uncertain external environment characterised by difficulties in maintaining market share, significant staff cuts and tight resources, transfer the insecurity to employees who often respond by being more dedicated to outcome targets and the associated long hours. Job security is particularly relevant to fathers as they often view their primary role as the family’s breadwinner.
- In certain employment types (e.g. production workers paid by the hour) where performance is measured by production outcomes, use of family-friendly policies is restricted.
- Family-friendly provisions in the workplace are often developed to accommodate only women’s responsibilities.
- Men’s perceptions that their parenting role is secondary to their role as breadwinner of the family.
- Men may be concerned that using family friendly provisions would imply that they put their families ahead of their loyalty to the company or their career. Any concerns about loyalty are likely to be partly invoked by the workplace culture, discouraging people to use these provisions.
Creating father-friendly workplaces
Here are some measures that might be considered by organisations seeking to create a father-friendly workplace:
- Management and employees could be educated about the importance of work-life balance, the benefits provided by work-life balance policies and the role of workplace culture in inhibiting individual’s usage of policies.
- The message communicated to staff needs to depict both men and women using work-life balance policies. It should be emphasised that these issues are relevant to working mothers and fathers and are not ‘for women only’. For example, stories in brochures and newsletters should reflect the experiences of both men and women.
- Discussions between management and staff may increase understanding of mutual expectations and develop solutions to work-life balance issues for men and women.
- Discussions between team members on how they can help each other with work-life balance should be encouraged. Communication within the workplace may increase understanding of work-life balance issues both men and women are dealing with on a daily basis.
- The organisation should encourage men across all levels of the organisation, including managerial staff, to access family-friendly policies.
- Male managers could be encouraged to act as role models for working fathers by using the policies themselves. Active support by managers is necessary to change the workplace culture.
- Flexible use of time is an important element in creating a parent-friendly workplace. This does not mean working less, but giving parents more control over when and where they complete their work.
- Employers should judge employee’s performance on their output, rather than the number of hours they spend at work. This is rewarding employees for performance, not face time.
- Paid paternity leave is a useful entitlement, as unpaid paternity leave is often not taken by men. Paid paternity leave can contribute to making a workplace father-friendly, but is only used by fathers a few times in their careers.
Last updated 2 October 2008
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