British businesses should implement more family-friendly policies as this can improve employee morale and productivity.

Research by Mumsnet revealed that female employees were unhappy at organisations that did not promote workplace family-friendly policies because this negatively affected their work-life balance. Britain was rated behind European Union partners such as Spain, Italy and Greece in terms of family friendliness which may encourage talent female workers to look abroad for employment.

Nearly nine out of ten mothers surveyed by Mumsnet said that flexible working was a priority when searching for a job but 60 per cent thought that British businesses were not family friendly. In addition, nearly every mother thought that having children was an obstacle to advancing in their chosen career and the majority thought that having kids made them less employable.

Justine Roberts, chief executive of Mumsnet, said that more British businesses should improve their flexibility and become more tolerant of the needs of mothers as this will enable them to recruit the best female talent. Ms Roberts went onto say that parents should not have to feel bad for missing work in order to attend an important family event such as a sports day or Christmas play.

Large companies are more likely to have family-friendly policies and public sector organisations often offer flexible working but smaller companies can find it difficult to accommodate mothers due to having a small workforce. Businesses of all sizes may want to hire the service of performance improvement consulting experts about how flexible working procedures may benefit their workplace morale and productivity levels.

Flexible working can benefit a business in numerous ways but some bosses are still suspicious about offering such assistance as they feel that employees may take advantage and not work to their full capabilities. If implemented, flexible working can result in greater cost-effectiveness and efficiency as businesses can save on overheads such as desk space when employees are allowed to work from home.

Employers will be able to attract a better calibre of candidate if they offer flexible working practices as it will appear that they value their workforce and respect the need for a positive work-life balance. Businesses with a diverse workforce are likely to draw for a wider pool of potential employees if they have workers from all backgrounds such as mothers and young professionals.

Author Martin Hofschroer is writing on behalf of Himsworth Consultancy, a leading management consultancy firm of senior business and consultancy professionals that specialise in improving corporate and operational performance, delivering world-class customer service improvements and offering alternatives to business and functional outsourcing. Visit http://www.himsworthconsultancy.com/ for more details.