The Parental Leave Toolkit app, which helps assist new parents or ones who expect to see their family grow to embark on parental leave, return to work and also help managers to provide a welcoming environment for such staff, has been shortlisted for the B2B/Business App of the Year, App of the Year – Productivity and UK App of the Year 2019 at the UK App Awards.
The app was designed by My Family Care, who were acquired earlier this year by global childcare and employee benefits provider Bright Horizons.
The app is a coaching toolkit that helps employees on their maternity, paternity, adoption, surrogate and shared parental leave journey. According to Bright Horizons, it hones “in on the professional aspects of maintaining a career and planning for an effective return whilst also going through this transition as either a new parent or a growing family. Significantly, the app is also designed to support line managers prepare as one of their team departs and as they return to the workplace.”
It allows both parents and managers to receive an individual programme and can also create a personal plan based on parental leave type.
Ben Black, the founder of the app, said:
We are delighted that our Parental Leave Toolkit has been recognised as a finalist for three UK App Awards. As a result of the app, we have successfully coached thousands of clients’ employees through the new parent transition with outstanding results. We have had fantastic feedback from individual users as well as employers who have noted a big impact on talent retention rates.
Deborah Richards, diversity and inclusion leader at IBM, UK and Ireland, said:
As a global technology business operating out of 19 different UK locations with more than 10,000 employees, you could say the Parental Leave Toolkit was made for us. IBM have worked with Bright Horizons for many years to provide our employees with virtual parental leave training and coaching sessions, the transition to an online/app based solution made a huge amount of sense. It has made an enormous difference to our mobile workforce: Our parental leave coaching is now available to all our employees in the UK and Ireland, it supports our geographically widespread population and has proved to be a highly accessible way of providing an inclusive and valuable solution.
The winners will be announced at an award ceremony and gala dinner on Tuesday 26th November at The Montcalm Marble Arch in London.
Darius is the editor of HRreview. He has previously worked as a finance reporter for the Daily Express. He studied his journalism masters at Press Association Training and graduated from the University of York with a degree in History.