Yurtle’s Aaron Dryden on creating parity when supporting working parents and carers
The need to create greater parity between the provisions offered to carers and parents was highlighted during REBA’s webinar Rethink parent and carer benefits to achieve talent, pay gap and productivity targets with strategic partners Yurtle.
“Employers are keen to create more parity between the support for parents and the support for working carers, said Aaron Dryden, care experience lead at Yurtle.
“They spotted and realised with the changes in legislation that this is looming and there's going to be a societal shift.”
Employment legislation introduced in 2024, such as the Carers Leave Act 2023, and employment law reforms announced in October 2024, indicate how support for parents and carers is increasing at a legislative level.
“Remaining compliant with what comes out means that you're likely to end up behind the curve quite quickly as an employer,” said Dryden.
“You need to think progressively, making sure that what you offer one group, for instance parents, you extend to others, such as carers and other demographics within the workforce.
“Consider parity at all times and you're likely to be in better stead for what might come down the line. It's going to be an interesting few years of government looking at how this progresses and changes,” he added.
Dryden said that a big part of increasing parity is the way in which this links with an organisation’s social purpose and corporate values.
Not only does it play into these aims, but it can also make your workforce more resilient and support diversity in various forms within it.
“I've been fortunate enough to work with a few organisations on a policy audit to look at how their policies treat different demographics within their workforce, as they try to strive towards parity in that offer,” he said.
He explained that anyone can become a carer, disabled or unwell at any point in their career, so introducing parity is important to cover the deeply human ways that people can be impacted during their life.
