Will 2024 be a good year for working families?

Extended childcare funding, new family friendly rights and flexible working look like making this year a landmark for working families. But much depends on how employers act

Retention will be the biggest HR challenge for 2024, followed by recruitment, cost of living, employee engagement, government changes and legislation changes, according to research by esphr, reported in HR Grapevine.

Employers will continue to have a strong focus on the employee value proposition (EVP) given skills shortages.

Following the release of the latest Office for National Statistics labour market figures in December, the CIPD’s Senior Labour Market Economist Jon Boys said: “The labour market can be characterised as having too many jobs and not enough people to fill them.”

Even though this trend is beginning to reverse, “unemployment remains low, while vacancies and wage growth remain high, albeit lower than in recent periods”.

Boys says the labour market will cool, easing the pressure for employers but “the government has signalled intentions to lower immigration, and we have an ageing population, both of which will weigh on labour supply”.

Given the competition for talent, Greg Guilford, CEO of HR Solutions, writing in HR Magazine, urges HR leaders to “keep the human in human resources” and set out a clear EVP. This, he says, is likely to go beyond traditional reward to include wellbeing, flexibility, environmentally friendly working, a supportive culture, career development opportunities, enhanced family friendly entitlements and CSR (corporate social responsibility) options to work with local charities”.

So, working parents and carers – along with other employees – should find employers are still in listening mode, which is positive. From the employer’s point of view, Boys adds: “2024 is also likely to be the year that generative AI embeds itself into business processes, boosting productivity which has been lacklustre since the financial crash.”

Extended childcare funding

Another positive promise on the horizon for working parents in England is the proposed extension to funded childcare places. Fifteen hours of funded early education and care are to be offered to most working parents of two-year-olds from April and a similar 15 hours for babies from nine months in September (alongside the current allowance for three to four year olds). In September 2025, the intention is to fund 30 hours of early education for eligible working parents of children from age nine months to five years.

Parents need to apply for an eligibility code through the Childcare Choices website, by the end of March.

There are conditions. Each parent must be working at least the equivalent of 16 hours a week at the national living or minimum wage and earnng less than £100,000 a year. The places are also only available during ‘term-time’, meaning 38 weeks a year. So, if averaged across the year, next year’s 30 hours will amount to just over 22 hours a week.

Demand for places is likely to be high, especially since there has been a continuing wave of nursery closures, particularly among smaller providers who have struggled with high energy and food costs and also the pending increase in the National Living Wage.

Perhaps for these reasons – the eligibility and term-time limitations on the funded places and the competition for availability – leaders are predicting that employers will continue to play a key role in ensuring employees can access quality, affordable, accessible childcare.

The Times quoted Mark Dixon, founder and CEO of flexible workspace operator IWG, saying “employers will start playing a bigger role in supporting working parents to ensure they can maintain a diverse and skilled workforce”.

So, if more employers join in to flesh out the availability of – and access to – care, this could also be a positive element of the year for working parents. Without further support, there could be disappointments and frustrations.

Of course, with an election coming there might well be further promises made to working parents as a vital section of the electorate, such as Labour’s suggested plans for school-based nurseries.

New family friendly rights

Several extended family friendly regulations are to come into effect from April. These include longer protection from redundancy following parental leave, access to neonatal leave and pay, the introduction of a week of unpaid carer’s leave and more flexibility in the way parents take the two weeks of paternity leave.

However, the disparity between maternity/adoption leave and paternity continues to trouble the current generation of parents who tend not to see family roles as segregated along gender lines.

As Bright Horizon’s 2023 Parental Leave and Family Support Benchmark revealed, there is growing enthusiasm among employers for equal enhanced parental leave. Overall, the tendency both towards longer enhanced leave and towards putting in other supports such as coaching and help with care – covered in the Benchmark – make for positive times ahead.

More flexible working

The other much-discussed legislative development is the coming Day 1 right to request flexible working, also passing into law in April. The new right however will make a difference for those working for employers who have not so readily embraced flexibility as part of the culture.

Mark Dixon’s second prediction for 2024 was: “Big business will start hiring chief hybrid officers … Major companies on both sides of the Atlantic will hire C-suite level executives to oversee and optimise the hybrid working environment.”

Flexibility is as least as much about time as it is about location; however, Dixon’s prediction chimes with findings by the British Chambers of Commerce Insights Unit and technology firm Cisco. Here, fewer than 30% of employers expected their workforce to be fully in-person at offices and workplaces over the next five years while 16% expected them to be mostly remote and 8% fully remote. The research covered over 1,000 businesses; 96% were SMEs.

Concerningly, ACAS has pointed out that seven out of 10 employees are unaware of the coming right to request flexible working, which suggests some employees could be missing out. To get the most from this change in 2024, employers should take a lead on ensuring managers understand the links between good work-life fit and productivity, seeing flexibility not as a favour for employees but as the way to ensure people (whatever their life circumstances) can best deliver their work goals in a way that also works for them. And possibly better cash flows.

The National Living Wage will increase by over £1 an hour from April 2024, which is good for many employees. National Insurance (NI) main rates have also fallen from January 6 from 12% to 10%.

However, according to the Resolution Foundation, the NI adjustment will help higher earning workers more than lower earners. And gains may be offset by the impact of tax thresholds remaining fixed, as well as the context of high mortgage rates.

Bright beginnings and Bright Spaces

A further positive is the ongoing focus on fundraising for Bright Spaces supported by the Bright Horizons Foundation. This year will see the opening of the 100th UK Bright Space. Bright Spaces are safe, enriching, and nurturing play environments in domestic violence refuges, homeless shelters, child protection interview suites and prison visiting areas.

For working parents and carers in 2024, much will depend on the way employers seize opportunities to leverage family inclusive working as a talent strategy, seeing investment in care and other family supports as part of enabling talented people to flourish and deliver ambitious work targets for the year ahead.