According to a newly published report by Unison, 47% of 3,000 UK public sector workers surveyed believe that employees with responsibilities as carers for adults or children are discriminated against in the workplace today. 88% of the subjects had found themselves needing to provide care at some time, and 78% believed that staying in a job was harder as a result. 17% quit altogether, 32% took unpaid leave and 9% had taken an hourly pay cut. In total 76% felt forced to make significant alterations to their careers, and 14% said that they had been turned down for promotion or had felt unable to apply for it because they were carers.
Unison’s Assistant General Secretary, Christina McAnea, has said how important it is that employers do everything possible to help the huge proportion of the current workforce affected to manage, and provide help and support where needed. In addition to workers who need to juggle the responsibilities of parenthood, we cannot ignore the fact that our increasingly aging population is going to mean more and more adults of working age having responsibilities for caring for elderly relatives.
Denise Keating, CEO of Employers Network for Equality and Inclusion (ENEI) has urged employers to consider offering flexible and agile working, returnship and employee assistance programmes, and paid care leave. 95% of those workers surveyed by Unison are asking for such initiatives.
A report by the Work and Pensions Select Committee published earlier this year called for a change in the right to flexible working for carers, making it a day one entitlement as opposed to the current situation in which it is a right only after 26 weeks of employment. Many prominent voices have spoken up in support of the report’s proposals. There can be little doubt that those carers who are not working because they are unable to find jobs that fit around their caring, rather than because they choose not to work, are a huge loss to the economy.
Various government departments are actively considering what more could be done to apply appropriate pressure to businesses, to encourage them to consider such possibilities as flexible working. The objective, of course, is to help the businesses recognize for themselves that the advantages cut both ways.
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