Celebrating families

International Day of Families is a global day of celebration established by the United Nations to highlight the importance of families in our societies and the varying economic, social and demographic challenges they might face.

International Day of Families is a global day of celebration established by the United Nations to highlight the importance of families in our societies and the varying economic, social and demographic challenges they might face.

At Rolls-Royce, we’re championing the diversity of family structures and their needs within our own communities and looking at the ways we can better enable them with the flexibility they need to be at their best.

Finding the balance for everyone for be at their best

We’re focussed on creating space for professional development, allyship and community within our businesses. Supporting families of all shapes and sizes is integral to achieving this – whether that’s working people caring for children, elderly relatives or other dependents, given families or chosen ones.

We know that the future of work is all about balance, so supporting a flexible way of working wherever possible is part of our promise to all our people. Being in the workplace is important for collaboration, learning, access to the tools we need, our wellbeing and the unique interaction that comes from being with others. But finding the right balance that supports individual needs empowers many of our people to perform better and enables us to attract and retain a more diverse range of talented people.

Why flexible working for fathers is good news for everyone

Often, family support in the workplace focuses on needs of mothers and women who’ve traditionally held the role of primary caregiver.

But today, Ian Dinwiddy – coach, mentor and founder of Inspiring Dads – will be hosting a global virtual event around the importance of enhancing support for working dads and how that can set a benchmark that works in everyone’s favour.

He’ll be joined by two brilliant working dads from Rolls-Royce who want to open up the conversation and encourage more men to talk about the hurdles and the joys of parenthood and caring.

Providing a community through our Families & Carers Alliance

Our Families & Carers Alliance supports families and carers by helping to promote and share information around flexible working so that our people can find the right way to be at their best. It is a fully inclusive network with a desire to educate, support and influence change and policy decisions.

Its aim is to facilitate learning and awareness for line managers and employees around how to have important conversations about family, as well as work with families to better understand their needs and how we can best support them.

Louise McIntosh, Chair of the Family & Carers Alliance told us about her own experience of getting involved with the network when she became a parent: “When I started out in my career, flexible working wasn’t the norm. I didn’t have role models who’d shown what the work-life-harmony could look like. The network gave me a chance to ask advice, hear about others’ experiences and know that I still had so much value to bring to the workplace as a parent.”

Helping families in our wider communities

Today also provides a great opportunity to support families in our wider communities around the world. In the UK, US and Canada, we’re taking food bank collections and collecting other items that will provide aid to families who need it.

In the UK, donations will help to support the Women’s Work charity and Mid Cheshire Foodbank. Our teams in Canada will be supporting Centraide of Greater Montreal while US donations will help towards supporting the national Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive campaign.

Making the future of work a reality

Despite the shift to more flexible working created through the pandemic, research suggests only three in ten UK parents would be likely to apply for a job that did not list flexible working options in the advert. We recognise that there’s still a long way to go to make the future of work a reality – and make it work for out people and our business.

That’s why we’ve signed up to be part of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Flexible & Family Friendly Working. The APPG provides a constructive and collaborative space for policymakers and other stakeholders to debate key issues with the aim of finding practical solutions and advancing positive policy change that will make flexibility commonplace across all industries.

Rolls-Royce is already a corporate member of the UK’s national Working Families Charity which worked to bring together the APPG.

We also talked to some of our people about their experiences – what family means to them, how they endeavour to achieve harmony between work and life and how they’ve been supported. Read more.

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