Transition to Parenthood in UK SMEs

UK research on pregnancy and maternity related discrimination at work (Adams et al., 2016a,b) found that small employers had the lowest awareness about the rights of pregnant and newly maternal employees, and that they were least likely to provide options for flexible working. In the UK, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for 99.9% of the business population, three fifths of the employment and around half of turnover in the private sector . Whilst the research by Adams et al. (2016a,b) has highlighted the concerning extent of pregnancy and maternity related discrimination in differently sized UK workplaces, the study neither included specific recommendations on how to improve maternity support in SMEs, nor the experiences of new fathers. However, the management of new parenthood in SMEs is very different from large firms as SMEs are characterised by a number of key features, including resource scarcity and preference of more informal approaches to staff management. They often do not have a dedicated Human Resources department and no written maternity/paternity policies. SME owners/managers are also often more resistant to maternity/paternity protection regulations than large firms, fearing the time and costs involved.

Our proposed study addresses an important gap in detailed knowledge on transition to parenthood in UK SMEs and is designed to have a direct impact on practice and policy as well as academic understanding of the management of maternity/paternity in SMEs. It is timely as it feeds into current/recent UK policy debates on parental leave, flexible working, and on how to support fathers in the workplace. However, while focusing on the UK, our project addresses a global problem: SMEs are globally under-researched although they employ the majority of (parental) workers worldwide.
The project builds on previous research by including key stakeholders in the co-design of context-sensitive, low-cost and scalable solutions for effective management of new parenthood in SME workplaces. We adopt a mixed methods design, combining quantitative and qualitative elements. Specifically, data collection will include the following elements:

1. Employing a longitudinal and participatory approach, qualitative data will be collected on experiences in relation to pregnancy, maternity/paternity/adoption/shared parental leave, flexible working, breastfeeding and childcare support, and accompanied by an awareness raising intervention co-designed by (owner-)managers and employees. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with (owner-)managers and employees in three phases over a one-year period. In addition, focus groups will be conducted with a) prospective/expecting parents; b) co-workers to explore perceptions and experiences related to new parenthood and work; c) parents who requested flexible working.

2. Two large-scale cross-sectional surveys of employees and employers working in SMEs to complement the qualitative data and more broadly explore attitudes, intentions, experiences and social norms around pregnancy, breastfeeding and childcare support, parental leave and flexible working for parents and the availability to and take-up by mothers and fathers to further inform academic and policy debates.

Key outputs will include a final report, data-sets emerging from the different methods, an awareness raising toolkit with a focus on SME specific low-cost solutions, a video designed to support positive employer-employee interactions, and a series of factsheets and related short video documentaries. Dissemination, user engagement and impact activities will include a stakeholder engagement event and a one-day academic conference, presentations at academic conferences and publications in peer-reviewed journals. The sharing of findings will also be integrated from the start and involve a dedicated project website accompanied by regular blog posts and social media work.