How you’ll navigate your time, routines and career is a thought many will ponder, perhaps even worry about, so we wanted to make sure that we’re set up to be as supportive as possible. Making IMA a truly family first employer.

Policies that support

Our policies are our foundations, there to provide transparency and comfort to anyone who needs them. Over recent months not only have we reviewed and updated our existing family focused policies, but we have also developed and launched new ones. We recognise that everyone’s journey is different when it comes to starting a family, so we wanted to have the policies in place to acknowledge this. These new policies cover IVF, pregnancy loss and neonatal.

We have also launched our Maternity Playbook, detailing the extra support we offer for new and expectant parents, which has been met with great feedback so far.

Careers After Babies

We’ve recently shared the news that we are one of the first companies to be involved with Careers After Babies, an organisation that was set up to create a world-class cohort of employers who are committed to supporting working parents through their transformative accreditation. An accreditation we’re proud to be on our way to acquiring.

The accreditation was developed after a survey conducted by Careers After Babies revealed some shocking statistics…

• 98% of mums want to go back to work after having children, yet only 13% think it’s viable on a full-time basis.

• Of the 24% that tried to go back full time, 79% ended up leaving because they couldn’t maintain their full-time job alongside having a baby (full report here).

Parent and Carer community

Becoming a parent also affects life beyond just those early years, which is why we’ve launched our Parent Carer Community - a support network for those with the responsibility of being a parent or carer. As a group we host coffee mornings and swap shops, small moments carved out in the working day to provide feedback, help each other out or simply vent to someone who gets it.

This group was also the driving force behind out new ‘Life Moments’ initiative - created to acknowledge that some milestones, personal or family related, are just too important to miss. Perhaps it’s your child's first day at school, they have a nativity or it’s the big sports day – if you need to flex your working hours to accommodate, we’re fully supportive.

These are just some of the ways we’ve been evolving over recent months to work towards our aim of been the best possible employer for parents.