Work-Life Balance at UCL;
what the law says and what our policies
enable…
Work
Religion/Belief
Future
Health
Community
Relationship
Family
& Friends
Hobbies
Work Life Balance (WLB)
The Work Foundation considers that…
‘It is achieved when an individual's right to a
fulfilled life inside and outside paid work is accepted
and respected as the norm, to the mutual benefit of
the individual, business and society.’
Different ways to work
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Flexitime / core hours
Annualised hours / term time working
Shift working / Rota working
Compressed hours
Part time working
Job share/splitting
Remote working
Career breaks
UCL Work Life Balance Policy
• ‘Right to request’ flexible working open to all employees
who have completed 6 months service
• Requests must be made in writing to Line Manager/HoD
• Not monitored corporately; allows departments to develop
their own approaches (Faculty approach?)
• HR staff can give advice
Maternity provision
UK
• Paid time for antenatal care
UCL
• 18 weeks full pay
• 52 weeks leave
• If funding ends, UCL will
• Statutory Maternity Pay
(SMP)
• Keeping in touch days (KIT)
• Right to return to work
• Annual leave
try to redeploy
• Research active academics
may apply for one term of
sabbatical leave
• Childcare vouchers
• Workplace nursery
Paternity/Partners provision
UK
• 2 weeks leave
• Statutory Paternity Pay
(SPP)
• Employed for a minimum
period
• Taken as a block of one
week or 2 weeks
• Taken within the 8 weeks
following the baby’s birth
UCL
• 4 weeks leave
• Full pay
• No qualifying period
• Can be taken as individual
days or in blocks
• Can be taken during a 6
month period
Additional Paternity/Partners Leave (APL)
• In addition to the Paternity/Partners Leave above, an employee can
take an additional 2 to 26 weeks of leave, if the mother returns to work
before exhausting all of her Maternity Leave.
• There is no qualifying length of service for APL.
• An employee who qualifies, can receive any statutory pay not taken by
the mother and this is called Additional Statutory Paternity Pay.
• APL must start no earlier than 20 weeks after the baby is born and
must be used within a year of the birth.
• Up to 10 'Keeping in Touch' days may be agreed during APL
• Further information is available in the UCL Policy on Leave for
Domestic and Personal Reasons.
Sabbatical Leave
• Available to research active academics, when
returning from - Maternity/Adoption Leave
- Additional Paternity Leave
- Extended Carer’s Leave
- Long-term sickness absence
• Allows one term free from teaching commitments
• Requests should be made to HoD within 4 weeks of
the return to work
Parental Leave @ UCL
• Unpaid
• Available to all employees with 1 years service
• 18 weeks per child
• Maximum of 4 weeks per year
• Taken before the child’s 8th birthday / 18th birthday
• Taken within 8 years of placement for adoption
Childcare Vouchers
• Nurseries, childminders, breakfast clubs, afterschool
care, school holiday schemes
• Vouchers up to £55 a week (or £243 a month)
• Salary sacrifice
• Savings of around £900 a year for basic-rate
taxpayers
www.kiddivouchers.com
(UCL Ref: S910484a)
UCL Policies & Procedures
An A-Z listing of all UCL HR policies is available at
www.ucl.ac.uk/hr
• Work Life Balance
• Maternity Leave/Maternity Calculator
• Leave for Domestic and Personal Reasons (includes
Paternity/Partner’s leave and Parental Leave)
• Sabbatical Leave
• Childcare Voucher Scheme
Employee Assistance Programme
Workplace Options provides an independent Employee
Assistance Programme available to all staff at UCL.
This is a free, confidential, and independent resource to help
staff with the balance of work, family and personal life.
The service is available 24/7 by phone, email, or online;
www.workplaceoptions.com
Thank you!
Anne-Marie Howard
HR Policy Officer
anne-marie.howard@ucl.ac.uk
Using this information in your application
Outline the support offered by UCL, but always explain….
• What you’re doing to publicise information and encourage and enable
staff/students to take up UCL opportunities. SWAN want to see if good practice
is embedded in the department - “grass roots action”
• Give evidence that staff are aware of opportunities and support (e.g. through
survey data / take up rates)
• Outline anything the department is doing in addition to UCL policy
Using this information in your application
4. Supporting and advancing women’s careers
Flexibility and managing career breaks
a)(i) Maternity return rate
a)(ii) paternity, adoption and parental leave uptake
a)(iii) numbers of applications and success rates for flexible working by gender and
grade
b)(i) Flexible working
b)(ii) Cover for maternity and adoption leave and support on return
In these sections you can outline UCL policy and explain how you support and
enable staff to take advantage of them, along with anything you do in addition.
Using this information in your application
2. The self-assessment process
a) A description of the self assessment team: members’ roles (both within the
department and as part of the team) and their experiences of work-life balance
• Have members of the team benefited from any UCL work-life balance
policies? Have they been supported by the department?
4. Supporting and advancing women’s careers
Key career transition points
b)(i) Recruitment of staff
• How are applicants who have had career breaks or previously worked
part time given fair consideration in the recruitment process?
• Have all recruiters had relevant and up to date UCL training?
b)(ii) Support for staff at key career transition points
• Some departments have identified maternity leave as a key transition
point if very few women return from leave
Using this information in your application
4. Supporting and advancing women’s careers (cont)
Career development
a)(i) Promotion and career development
• How are staff who work flexibly or part time supported through the
promotion process?
• How are career breaks considered when considering staff for promotion?
Organisation and culture
b)(ii) workload model
• Comment on how part time working and career breaks are catered for
and considered in your workload models (or equivalent)
b)(iii) timing of departmental meetings and social gatherings
• Are staff working part time or flexibly considered and consulted?
• Are timings regularly reviewed or changed?
• How are staff on career breaks kept up to date with important
information whilst on leave?
Examples of good practice across UCL
• The Institute of Child Health (ICH) and the Institute of Ophthalmology (IoO)
have run career events for early career researchers, these events have included
information on maternity, paternity and flexible working at UCL.
• The Division of Medicine (DoM) have allocated £25K per annum in order to
provide technical support to supervisors while female students are on maternity
leave and during their return to work.
• The MRC Lab for Molecular Cell Biology (LMCB) have publicised additional
paternity leave to staff through their Athena SWAN notice board.
• The Institute of Neurology (IoN) have two maternity mentors. The mentors (one
clinical academic, one non-clinical academic) are both female staff who have
taken maternity leave and returned to work at IoN. All staff who request
maternity leave are offered the support of one of the two mentors.
• Psychology and Language Sciences (PALS) have an online system that is used to
annually monitor workload
Examples of good practice across UCL
• The Director of the MRC LMCB keeps in touch with those on leave and invites
them to department events.
• Biochemical Engineering HoD has one to one meetings with staff, during these
meetings they discuss flexible working arrangements and opportunities for home
working.
• IoO have developed a parents mailing list which used to distribute useful
information including parent support at IoO, local childcare options and UCL
policy information. Members of the mailing list are also encouraged to use the
email list to ask each other questions and offer support.
• LMCB have included a discussion about options for flexible working into the
appraisal system.
• Computer Science have started a Post-Break award – this award of £10,000 is
intended to support the awardee to get their research back up to speed.
Examples of good practice across UCL
• IoO have negotiated a 10% discount at a local nursery for IoO staff
• The Institute for Women’s Health offer postgraduate courses that are designed
to be extremely flexible – these courses can be completed part time over 5
years.
• PALS held a maternity and paternity interviews to learn more about perceptions
of leave and flexible working in the department
• LMCB – meetings are held in core hours, but also aim to avoid school holidays.
• Information on maternity, paternity and flexible working policies have been
added to induction packs and information given to new staff by DoM, Eastman
Dental Institute, Mental Health Sciences, IoO, PALS and Institute for Women’s
Health.
• The DoM are setting up a mentoring scheme for women in the department. It is
intended that the mentoring scheme will also provide support for female
researchers before, during and after periods of maternity leave.
Thank you
Contact Details:
Harriet Jones, Policy Adviser for Athena SWAN
Harriet.jones@ucl.ac.uk