WORKPLACE - Reporting & Actions
2.3.3 Reporting & Actions:
Decent working conditions & family friendly policies
Is the company working actively to create a family-friendly workplace through improving working conditions for parents and caregivers?
Scoring options
- 10 = Yes, the company is working actively to improve working conditions for parents and caregivers in their own operations and/or in their suppliers’ operations.
- 5 = The company is working actively to improve working conditions for employees in their own operations and/or in their suppliers’ operations. These programmes do not focus specifically on children or parents.
- 0 = No, the company is not working actively to improve working conditions for parents, caregivers, or employees in their own operations or in their suppliers’ operations, or there is no information publicly available.
Why is this important?
One effective way to address corporate impact on children’s lives is to establish activities that strive to prevent and remediate any negative impact and/or create positive impact for children (and their parents). By operating a workplace that considers the needs of parents, positive indirect impact for children might include: more time with their parents; access to day-care/schooling, and ability to breastfeed for a longer time period. Such initiatives have significant health and developmental benefits for children.
About the scoring
A score of 10 is given if the company has publicly available information showing that they are working actively to support parents and provide work-life balance for their employees such as:
- Programmes to incentivise parental leave (including for fathers)
- Offering on-site quality childcare or childcare subsidies to employees – or suppliers’ employees
- Offering subsidies for tuition fees, etc. to support education for employees’ children (under 18)
- Under circumstances where access to education is limited, providing educational solutions for employee’s children, e.g. running schools or offering transport to existing schools, etc.
- Supporting breastfeeding by providing leave or breastfeeding facilities for working mothers
- Supporting pregnant workers and ensuring their well-being
A score of 5 is given if the company has programmes to ensure employee well-being more broadly, for instance:
- Working hours
- Wages and other non-monetary benefits
- Health and safety programmes
- Prevention of abuse/harassment
- Promoting gender equality
If the programme focuses only on getting women back to work after childbirth, without any provisions for, e.g. breastfeeding and/or childcare, it qualifies as a general programme and results in a score of 5, as the benefit for the child in this case is unclear.
N.B. If the programme consists entirely of donations to an NGO/charity, it doesn’t qualify here, but it will be considered under Indicator 1.3.1 Collaboration.
Indicator reference
Children’s Rights and Business Principles:
- All business should meet their responsibility to respect children’s rights and commit to supporting the human rights of children (Principle 1)
- All business should provide decent work for young workers, parents and caregivers (Principle 3)
The GRI standards:
- 401-2