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Stuart Gentle Publisher at Onrec

Is your business overlooking high calibre female ‘career break’ talent?

Media attention recently has focused on equal pay for women and the Government is currently in consultation about forcing companies to report the gender pay gap

Media attention recently has focused on equal pay for women and the Government is currently in consultation about forcing companies to report the gender pay gap. A new Equality and Human Rights Commission Survey is also looking into an alleged 54,000 women losing their jobs because they are pregnant and many women report having difficulty in finding a job once they have had a career break that is flexible enough to suit the hours they have available.

Some of these issues will take a long time to resolve, but Reality HR is already leading the way when it comes to spotting and providing roles that suit high calibre women returning from a career break.

Reality HR Managing Director, Laura Davis explains: “Some years ago I had this hunch that there must be many highly qualified women who left full-time HR positions to start a family, so I developed the Reality HR Flexible Working Hours Model on which I have grown the company to 17 employees, 16 of which are female.”

So, here are a few tips from Laura that have helped to make Reality HR the successful consultancy it is today:

  • Think about what your job advertisements say about your company culture - it’s not just about skillsets, you need employees with the right ethics, loyalty and commitment.
  • Consider recruiting on a flexible basis, unless your team needs to be at their desks between 9am and 5pm. Would it be OK for them to take from 3pm off to do the ‘school run’ and sort out meals and then log back on between 8pm and 10pm if that suits their life patterns?
  • Offer greater autonomy over the way your team works, as this often results in improved business performance.
  • Promote current female employees into leadership roles as other high calibre women will notice.
  • Advertise vacancies where women will look eg. womens’ employment websites like WomensJobList (www.womensjoblist.com)  or job boards like Working Mums (www.workingmums.co.uk)

However, don’t exclude men! Always choose the person with the right skills for the job.

As Laura commented when interviewed on That’s Oxford TV recently: “At Reality HR we work hard to encourage employers to look at things differently when recruiting, as there is an immense amount of talent out there eager to return to work.

“We also assist employers in their conversations with an employee who is about to go on maternity leave regarding how much contact they will have whilst they are away; how much contact is considered harassment, for example, and should the contact be by telephone or e-mail etc. There are a number of things that need to be sorted out face-to-face rather than leaving them to chance!”

www.realityhr.co.uk