Creating a family friendly practice for your staff

Emma Wynne Chartered FCIPD, is Managing Director and Senior HR Consultant at Gateway HR. She lectures in HR for both the University of Northampton and the CIPD at Masters Degree level.

Emma says, “Any member of staff can request flexible working, anyone can ask to change their contract, change their hours. The majority of people requesting this are parents, and a few are carers. We also see more men taking a hands on parental role, but there is a long way to go.”

If you are faced with a request for flexible work, Emma advises, “Usually with a bit of thought, changing things round, employing additional staff, flexible hours can work. This can be worthwhile for the employer if you are retaining a valuable person in the business. It makes the employee feels valued too.” Not every flexible working request can be allowed, in which case Emma suggests, “Explain that you have looked into it, outline the steps that you have taken which will help the employee understand your decision.”

She adds, “In smaller businesses it can be hard to offer flexible work, employees sometimes don’t think through what they ask. Generally in the front of house team in an optical practice, a good rota with more people working flexible hours has benefits in terms of more flexibility and holiday cover. Remember that as an employer you need to ensure fairness, so no-one gets the best shifts, everyone has to work certain weekends.”

Being a good employer involves more than simply knowing the legislation. Garry Kousoulou of Goodlooking Optics says, “Our business does a number of family friendly things. Your birthday is a paid day off. We’re flexible and offer a start time of 9.15 for parents who do the school run. We also give them the option of extra unpaid time off for summer holidays and half terms. On top of that we hold a family barbeque and try to embrace everyday happiness so people go home feeling positive.”

From the staff point of view, minor changes can make a big difference. Lian Robson says, “I work at Coleman Opticians in Norwich, and they are family orientated employers. I work a four-and-a-half-day fortnight. I have a later start some mornings so I can take my children to school and I have an earlier finish so I can collect the children from the after school club on time. They are flexible when the children have a special assembly at school or a hospital. I think it helps when employers are parents themselves. Because of the flexibility given to me, when I am at work I work even harder for them. Most people will give more when they feel that they are treated well by their employers.”

FLEXIBLE WORKING: GET THE FACTS

All employees have the legal right to request flexible working – not just parents and carers. You must have worked for the same employer for at least 26 weeks to be eligible. Employers must deal with requests in ‘reasonable manner’. This could include assessing the advantages and disadvantages of the application, holding a meeting to discuss the request with the employee and offering an appeal process.

PARENTAL PAUSES

Parental leave legislation has changed since December 2014. Emma Wynne explains, “Maternity leave in itself hasn’t changed for the birth mother, but leave can now be shared. Take into account health and safety for the mother, and then leave can then be swapped to the other partner.”

PAY AND LEAVE FOR PARENTS: THE FACTS

If you’re eligible and you or your partner end maternity or adoption leave and pay (or Maternity Allowance) early, then you can take the rest of the 52 weeks of maternity or adoption leave as Shared Parental Leave. You and your partner can also get Shared Parental Pay in place of maternity or adoption pay.

RE-REGISTRATION REQUIREMENTS

There are many reasons why you might decide to leave the optical profession temporarily for either a short or long period of time. If you find yourself in this situation, please read of some of the issues to consider before you let your GOC registration and/or ABDO membership lapse.

Personal indemnity insurance

You might think that you will not have to pay personal indemnity insurance as you are not in practice. However, there is the possibility that a claim can be made against you some time after you leave practice. If you don’t continue your insurance, or have ‘run-off’ cover, you may find that you have to pay legal fees yourself.

Locum work

Dispensing Optician is a protected title and you must be registered with the GOC to be able to use this. You would require personal indemnity insurance even for the occasional day working as a locum dispensing optician or contact lens optician. Click to access more information on legislation on the GOC website.

GOC restoration fee

The GOC charges a restoration fee to re-join the register. This is in addition to the standard registration fee.

Making up any shortfall in CPD

Following your career break, when you decide apply to re-join the GOC register if you did not achieve your 36 points in the previous CPD cycle, you will have the number of points you didn’t achieve in that cycle added on to your requirement for restoration. Depending on when you decided to take your break, you may be asked by the GOC to accrue up to 36 points before you can be restored to the register. Although ABDO provides many forms of CPD to help you, this can be an extremely onerous requirement, and can take months to achieve via free-of-charge CPD. As well as the number of points to be gained for restoration, the GOC will also stipulate the other CPD conditions need to be met, such as gaining half as interactive points and covering all four domains. Contact lens opticians in shortfall will also have to gain peer review points.

If you were up-to-date with your CPD points in the last cycle, or you weren’t on the GOC register for the whole of the last cycle, a dispensing optician will have the minimum restoration requirement stipulated by the GOC, 12 points. If you are a contact lens optician, 6 of the 12 points must be contact lens competencies, and 6 general dispensing. Once you have achieved the restoration requirement, your CPD ‘score’ is set to zero, and from your restoration date you must start gaining points for the current cycle.

ABDO provides a wide choice of CPD and ways to gain it. Almost all will be free-of-charge to ABDO members.

Before you let everything lapse, consider whether it would be less trouble, less expense and safer to stay on the GOC register and continue your ABDO membership. At least try to ensure that you don’t have a CPD shortfall in this period, or you may find that it is extremely difficult to get back into work after your break.

RESOURCES

Legislation & procedures for flexible work: www.gov.uk/flexible-working

Read more about taking a break: CPD FAQs – ABDO

ACAS guidance on flexible working: www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1616