Experian: standing out from the crowd with family-friendly work practices

The need for a flexible, family-friendly workplace

The ethos at Experian centres on the idea that “our business is our people and they are our biggest asset,” explains Sophie. “So whether it’s our call centre staff, our exec or our support staff, everyone is contributing to the success of Experian, and alongside that our leadership team believe in the wellbeing of our employees.”

Four years ago, Experian began its journey to become a more family-friendly employer. At that time the organisation recognised that a lot of employees have responsibilities outside of work, and they wanted to be supportive and encouraging of those. As such, they try to offer as much help as they can, and encourage people to be open about their lives outside of work.

The journey to greater flexibility

The project began when the organisation became a member of Working Families in 2017; they started up an internal Working Families Network and enhanced their family-friendly policies.

Originally the network would just capture new parents – those returning from maternity or adoption leave – and the organisation would send monthly emails and host events on how to apply for flexible working and other relevant topics. After they received their Working Families top 30 award in 2018, they decided to change the network to include parents of children of all ages, adult and elderly dependents.

“We did this so we could include everybody and support everybody that needed us, because we were aware that it’s not just new parents that have other responsibilities outside of work,” says Sophie.

As well as expanding their Working Families Network, which has an exec sponsor, Experian benchmarked itself against other companies and felt that we were okay, but that they didn’t standout.

“It was at a point when flexible working was being talked about more nationally, not just at Experian, and we wanted to be able to be part of that. So we concentrated on that area and enhanced our policies, and it has grown from there,” explains Sophie.

Flexible working isn’t just available for those with caring responsibilities. The organisation promotes flexible working from the point of application – the phrase ‘happy to talk flexible working’ is on all of its job vacancies – and it is now a day-one right for all employees.

Benefits to support working families

As well as the network support system and its ongoing promotion of flexible working, Experian also offers a range of benefits and policies to support working parents.

Sophie explains that they provide parents and carers leave, which offers employees more flexibility with caring responsibilities. This was doubled from five to 10 days this year due to the pandemic.

“We’ve enhanced our maternity and paternity offering in the last three years and we celebrate milestones. For example, if your child is starting school we offer half a day’s paid leave for you to be there,” says Sophie.

They also provide an employee assistance programme, that not only has a counselling service, but also includes online resources for parents and carers – information that is often shared on their internal network.

Managers are also given training on how to manage employees with caring responsibilities and those who work part-time. Sophie explains that, following some focus groups held with employees, it became clear that although managers were supportive of those who wanted to go part-time, they struggled to effectively job-size. This meant that some were working part-time hours but their role hadn’t changed. As a result of the new training, managers were given more insight into how to job size and to think about alternatives such as job sharing.

The impact of COVID-19

Coronavirus has had a particularly big impact on working parents with school-aged children. During the lockdown period and continued school closures many were struggling to manage work and home responsibilities. Sophie highlights that this is where the network came into its own.

“The network was at the fore front of the business at that time because there were so many people working from home who had their kids at home,” she says.

“Nobody knew what to expect in terms of video calls etc and so at the beginning of May we held a webinar – there was a panel of us who all have kids of different ages and we were encouraged to have our kids on the video while we were doing the call,” explains Sophie. “It was to get the message across that we understand that if you’ve got children at home, we don’t expect you to be working 9-5.”

The event received great feedback from employees who were reassured that the organisation was happy for them to work flexibly and that there were many others in similar situations.

“It bought the business closer together. If you were on a call and your child popped up in the background then that became part of the call – rather than you trying to shove them out of the way,” adds Sophie.

Future plans to further improve

As with any workplace initiative there is always room for improvement. Sophie says that they are currently reviewing their return to work process to make sure it’s really slick – particularly, around what managers need to do in preparation for someone coming back. They’re also looking at providing more support to managers to make sure that they’re promoting and supporting flexible working, as well as introducing workshops for employees that are relevant and needed.

“Generally as a business we’re really trying to embrace flexible working and promote it. When the message comes from the top down, which it has done, it is taken a lot more seriously,” concludes Sophie.

The author is Dawn Lewis, content editor at REBA.