“… as with most workplace culture-shifts, change often comes from the top…” Jen D'Souza
In this episode, we sat down with Jen D’Souza, Recruitment Manager & Partner at Charity People to discuss parental leave in the charity sector. Jen draws on her own experiences both as an in-house hiring manager and as a recruitment specialist to discuss what organisations can be doing more to support all parents across the sector, but also, what individuals can do to ensure their needs are heard by their employers.
1. Flexibility is key
An overarching theme throughout our chat was how properly compensating employees during parental leave, coupled with offering flexibility once parents are back in work, isn’t just a benefit to the individual employee but a benefit to the organisation overall. Charities should also consider how they’re helping to support anyone who is looking to take shared parental leave. All of these things are a great way to attract a wider talent pool from the start and then retain this talent to minimise the expense of having to recruit and replace.
2. Advocate for yourself
Try to build up the courage within yourself to ask about things that would benefit you from the start when looking for a new role. This could include: questions about flexible working options and how their parental leave is structured. You can even ask to see interview questions in advance to support the interview process.
As with most workplace culture-shifts, change often comes from the top. Therefore, in order to see a real change in how the sector approaches parental leave and the subsequent working patterns of parents, we will need to see more people in senior positions working part-time and more people taken on the option of shared parental leave.
4. Interviewer's thoughts
My final thought for the day is most of us make a conscious choice to work in the charity sector because we want to do something that benefits society and the people in it. So let’s all take a moment to reflect and make sure we’re treating our staff and colleagues with the same compassion and understanding with which we treat our beneficiaries.
We hope you enjoy this episode.
Related episodes that you may be interested in:
E257 - The four day working week with Bernadette Murphy - https://www.charitychat.org.uk/post/e257-the-four-day-working-week-with-bernadette-murphy
E256 - Creating a more inclusive sector with Larna Mewett-Mayer -
E218 - Wellbeing and co-creation with James Atkins -
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