SPL – PfP survey result announced

SPL PfP Survey results announced


More dads want to work flexibly but managers need to support them.  In a PfP Coaching survey, 57% of working dads said they would consider taking Shared Parental Leave.

With Shared Parental Leave (SPL) becoming officially available for parents of babies born from 5th April onwards, we asked 47 working dads how they feel about taking time off from work to share leave with their partners.

A surprising 77% of respondents have already made changes to their working lives since becoming fathers, in order to spend more time with their children.  One third of this group have made formal changes to their working arrangements.  Examples of flexibility ranged from giving up work altogether to be a stay-at-home dad, to taking Additional Paternity Leave and working 4.5 day weeks and 9-day fortnights.

It was positive to hear many examples of informal flexibility too – leaving early or doing the school run were the most common:  ‘I hope more dads ask their employers about flexibility – let’s see more of them at the school gates!’

57% of respondents said they would consider taking Shared Parental Leave, as more dads push for more time with their families:  ‘Childhood is a once in a lifetime experience for a dad and should not be missed if at all possible.’

37% of dads who said they wouldn’t consider sharing leave with their partners 40% of these respondents stated financial reasons as to why they weren’t considering SPL.  Only 4% specifically highlighted the negative impact it could have on their career.  However, this could be because many dads have not yet experienced the longer-term consequence of the working/parenting split.  One respondent pointed out that ‘it will impact on your ability to work/perform, and it’s a matter of time before the glass ceiling appears, as for working mums.

Manager support for working dads certainly appears to be lacking, with 38% of respondents reporting that they did not feel their managers supported them as they became fathers in the workplace.  This result is very much in line with the similar lack of managerial support felt by working mums.  Comments reflected the fact it’s still culturally more acceptable for women to work flexibly: ‘all the leave options are targeted at women.’  If more managers understood that becoming a good parent means increasing the level of workplace flexibility, fathers would be happier and more productive at work. [i]

Conclusion

Despite this being a small-scale, ‘snapshot’ survey, the results very much resonate with the comments and concerns we hear on a weekly basis during our parents’ workshops.  There is an increasing appetite for dads wanting to combine working and parenting and many fathers have already taken steps to spend more time with their children.  Managerial support is still very much lacking, as are more father-friendly policies and entitlements.

[i] See this January 2015 Forbes article:  The More Time Men Spend with their Kids the Happier they are at Work http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2015/01/12/the-more-time-dads-spend-with-their-kids-the-happier-they-are-at-work/


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