FAMILY FRIENDLY EMPLOYER AWARDS
Belfast City Council Crowned Family Friendly Employer of the Year!
1Belfast City Council received the Family Friendly Employer 2017 Overall Winner Award. Sarah Travers, Bespoke Communications, and Maxine Orr, Worthingtons Solicitors, present the Award to Karen Russell, Tracey Cowan and Gabrielle Madden‐Ross, Belfast City Council.
elfast City Council were crowned‘ Overall Family Friendly Employer
B2017’ at the Family Friendly Employer Awards Ceremony 2017, organised by Employers For Childcare and sponsored by Worthingtons Solicitors.
The Council proved they have gone above and beyond to support employees through a period marked by significant challenge and change, including financial and structural, with the implementation of Local Government Reform.
The judges were also impressed with future plans to support staff including:
• a Health and Wellbeing App for staff,
• events focusing on Men’ s Health and
Women in the Workplace,
• AgeFriendly Initiatives, and
• a Gender Action Plan including lobbying on the childcare strategy and hosting a regional gender budgeting conference. Marie Marin, CEO of Employers For Childcare, says“ Employers are facing many challenges in our current times of austerity, with Brexit, the public sector pay cap and budgeting dominating the agenda.
“ Belfast City Council has demonstrated that, in the face of such obstacles, organisations can innovate to support their employees in striking a worklife balance and enjoy significant benefits as a result.”
Lord Mayor of Belfast, Councillor Nuala McAllister, said:“ We’ re thrilled to be awarded with Family Friendly Employer of
56 www. businessfirstonline. co. uk
2017. We recognise that our staff are our most valuable asset, and by providing family friendly initiatives, this contributes to building the capacity of our organisation, through our people, to deliver a successful Belfast and make Belfast better for the future.
“ On a personal level, I’ m also very aware of the Council being a family friendly employer making it easier for me to juggle the demands of working life with looking after my young son Finn.”
Ms. Marin agrees,“ Staff who are satisfied with their worklife balance are more loyal, motivated and productive. Being a family friendly employer makes commercial sense.” She continues,“ We are delighted to see a significant increase in applications this year.
“ Through the application process, we have discovered many innovative ways to deliver a family friendly approach.
“ We will be inviting the winning employers to share their initiatives at a workshop in the New Year.”
The Family Friendly Employer Awards, now in its seventh year, is an annual event to recognise employers who provide and actively promote family friendly working policies.
The Awards Ceremony, compered by Sarah Travers, was a truly celebratory event with inspirational and informative addresses from Jonathan Jenkins, CEO of London’ s Air Ambulance, as well as Damian McAlister from Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, last year’ s overall winner, and Maxine Orr, Partner at Worthington’ s Solicitors and one of the judges.
If you missed the Ceremony, visit Employers For Childcare’ s website where highlights and videos will be uploaded.
The winners of each category are: Overall Winner, Family Friendly Employer of the Year 2017: Belfast City Council Small Medium Enterprise / Micro Business Winner: Progressive Building Society Highly Commended: Adventures Day Nursery and LegalIsland
Public Sector Winner: Belfast City Council Highly Commended: Belfast Health and Social Care Trust and Queen’ s University Belfast
Charity / Social Enterprise Winner: Macs supporting children & young people Highly Commended: Northern Ireland Hospice and Clanrye Group Ltd.
Large Private Winner: Lagan Construction Group Highly Commended: Coca Cola HBC Northern Ireland and The Keystone Group