Yesterday, ILF Scotland was awarded the David Drysdale Memorial Award for best employer for all stages of fatherhood at the Scottish Top Employers for Working Families Awards in Glasgow.
The David Drysdale Memorial award has been created by Fathers Network Scotland in memory of its late founder and CEO, who died in July 2016, aged just 50. It honours the company judged to have contributed most to creating a father-friendly workplace, taking into account flexible-working, gender equality in working conditions for parents around parenting responsibilities, and a general culture of acknowledging and supporting dads at all stages of fatherhood.
Samantha Pringle, General Manager of Fathers Network Scotland said:
"We created the David Drysdale Memorial Award in tribute to our much-loved founder, to recognise an employer that supports its dads at all stages of fatherhood. Our Year of the Dad campaign in 2016 was full of joy and pain after losing David to cancer. At the FFWS Scottish Top Employers for Working Families Awards, David’s dad Dougal, is proud to be presenting the award to Independent Living Fund Scotland.
Though young and small, they have set high standards of care and support for their employees including their new dads. We were particularly impressed by the culture of flexible working modelled from the top by management, and above-statutory paternity leave. We know David would be delighted to see such progress in building the father-friendly world he embodied and campaigned for.”
Since its inception just over 20 months ago, ILF Scotland has established a number of family friendly flexible working practices for both fathers and mothers, offering 26 weeks full pay for staff taking Shared Parental Leave or Maternity Leave and four weeks full pay for those taking Paternity Leave.
ILF Scotland Chief Operating Officer, Harvey Tilley, commented,
“We are incredibly proud, humbled and honoured to receive this meaningful and inspiring award. When establishing the organisation, we decided a people-friendly culture, not even just a family friendly one, was important for staff. So while ILF Scotland offers flexibility to its working parents, it also offers any employee the right to work flexibly no matter what their individual circumstances are.
This approach has undoubtedly led to a high level of success and efficiency in the organisation with a motivated and happy staff team. I believe our approach is highly effective and I will always champion people friendly working!"
Winning this award is a significant achievement for ILF Scotland and it will continue to implement and endorse family friendly working practices amongst all staff. It is also now the organisation’s third award win in three months, following success at the UK Government Finance Awards in February and the Scottish Public Sector Awards in December.
You can also find out more information about our award win from Fathers Network Scotland here!
(Photo Image Credit: Family Friendly Working Scotland/Martin Windebank)
