Grant Thornton among top employers for working families

The national charity for working parents and carers, Working Families, has announced that Grant Thornton UK has been awarded a place on its list of the top family-friendly and flexible employers for the third consecutive year.  

Now in its 14th year, small and large employers from across the public, private and third sectors compete annually to gain a place on the charity’s list of ‘top employers for working families’. 

This year, the accountancy firm came in fourth after Audit Wales, Citigroup and the Crown Prosecution Service. 

Imperial College London, Natwest Group, North East London NHS Foundation Trust, Pinsent Masons, Welsh Parliament and Yorkshire Building Society ranked behind the firm in that order. 

Employers were assessed using Working Families’ benchmark and were scored on four key areas to build a comprehensive picture of their flexible and family-friendly policies and practices that specifically support parents and carers.  

Recent initiatives, which support working families and contribute to the firm’s continued inclusion in the top 10 list this year, included building on its inclusive family leave policies that has an enhanced paternity offering and offering flexible and hybrid working with the inclusion of reduced hours and job shares.

Grant Thornton also publicly shared its ‘how we work’ policy and highlighted how flexible working is promoting wellbeing and productivity and also removed barriers in its recruitment process such as bias in adverts. 

Fiona Baldwin, partner and board sponsor for gender at Grant Thornton UK, said: “We are delighted to be named as a leading employer for working families, recognising our commitment to creating an inclusive workplace for all our people. 

“People thrive when they can balance their lives with work, so we’ve developed flexible policies to support this balance. Our culture, fostered by these policies, makes us immensely proud, and we’ll keep enhancing support for a sustainable and balanced career.” 

Jane van Zyl, CEO of Working Families, added: “We are delighted with the standard of entries for this year’s ‘top employers for working families’ list. These employers show they are leading the way in building family-friendly and flexible workplaces in the UK and are already ahead of the curve when it comes to implementing the changes needed to comply with the new flexible working legislation coming into practice next year. Almost nine out of ten of our Benchmark entrants are already offering flexible working as a day one right.”