Gongs for top family friendly employers

Britain's most family friendly employers are to be recognised by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Women and Equality Harriet Harman at an Awards ceremony at Downing Street today. The three companies - BT, Henmans LLP, and Achieving Quality Leads - have won a Jobs 4 Mums National Award organised by recruitment company jobs4mothers.com and Take a Break magazine.

Four out of five new mothers would like to return to work but don't think they'll ever find suitable working hours. The Jobs for Mums Awards were borne from a campaign to help mothers who want to get back to work but can't find the right job. These Awards recognise employers who are ready to help them.

The Jobs 4 Mums campaign wants to find the boss who is most committed to giving jobs to mothers. Since its launch the campaign has triggered a great response.

Jobs4mothers.com is a leading online jobs site for flexible, family friendly work.

Even in these hard economic times many businesses see the value in offering flexible, family friendly work, explains jobs4mothers co-director Selina Smith. We felt they deserve recognition which is why we were delighted to be part of these awards. The three winners represented different sized enterprises:

Award categories - winners

Over 1000 employees: Winner - BT

Telecoms giant BT employs nearly 122,000 people, operating in 170 countries

Flexible working is available to every employee - and a good proportion take up the offer: it has 14,500 homeworkers, 5,000 part time workers and nearly 400 job sharers. It also offers a number of other flexible working options such as compressed hours and term time working. It reckons about 32 per cent of its work force have a child under 16. At BT, 97% of new mums return to work after maternity leave, compared with a national average of 40%. We also provide a childcare scheme so our employees are not just working smarter but they also have a smart salary, saving up to 1,000 per year on the cost of childcare says Caroline Waters, Director of BT People and Policy.

100-1000 employees: Winner - Henmans LLP

Henmans LLP is an Oxford-based law firm with 136 employees. It has 26 employees with children under 10; all of them use the flexitime hours it offers, and several work flexibly or work from home. The firm has an onsite caf where parents in the firm can bring their families, and social events are organised to include the children too. At least one solicitor was made a partner while on maternity leave; while a managing partner and head of department work a four day week. We do not regard maternity leave as an obstacle to promotion! says Viv Matthews, Head of HR for the firm.

Under 100 employees Winner - Achieving Quality Leads

Achieving Quality Leads is a sales consultancy firm based in Chiswick, south west London. It employs 8 staff, of which seven are women and three have children. All employees work part time from home and choose their own hours. The pay levels are good - a minimum of 15 an hour plus a quarterly performance bonus. All our work is flexible - that is part of the company ethos, explains Larry Miller co-director of the company. Everyone works from home, even the directors. That means we can attract people who once had highly professional jobs, but either could not, or chose not to continue with them, due to family or other commitments.

Yorkshire-based Ventura and Castlebeck Care were highly commended.

The judges were Minister for Women and Equality Harriet Harman, co-directors of jobs4mothers.com Selina Smith and Kristina Abdat, and deputy editor of Take a Break Sophie Hearsey. The winners will be recognized by the Prime Minister and Ms Harman in an awards ceremony at Downing Street on Monday 12 January.