Corporate schemes for families.

Summary This study was financed by the IRES Agency OBJECT The objective of this research is to list the measures and services offered by companies to help their employees not only to reconcile work and family life, but more broadly to fulfill their parental responsibilities. The commitment of companies in this area is strongly regulated by legislation and by contractual provisions. It is the responsibility of the social partners, employers via human resources departments, trade unions and works councils through their social and cultural activities. The objective is also to understand how these provisions relating to support for parenthood are negotiated, what the stakes are in these negotiations and how the measures are implemented. Finally, the aim is to identify how the issues related to the commitment of companies to support their employees who are parents are perceived and linked to other challenges such as, for example, professional equality between men and women or quality of life at work. METHODS This study is divided into two parts. The first part, which is intended to be introductory, establishes a statistical framework for support measures for the exercise of family responsibilities in companies. This quantitative section is based on the results of surveys conducted at the European level by Eurofound, or at the national level. The second, and main, part of the study aims to characterize in more detail the conditions under which the schemes and benefits are set up, and to identify their impact on the beneficiary employees. To this end, a qualitative survey was conducted among a sample of companies active in this field. An initial series of interviews with federal officials made it possible to identify the way in which the issue of support for parenthood is understood in seven professional branches. Some thirty interviews were then conducted in seventeen companies with CFDT union representatives and CFDT representatives on the works council, and, where possible, with management representatives. Most of these companies are large and belong to a group. Their profile is very diverse with regard to their sector of activity, their organization and the type of workforce employed, more or less qualified and more or less feminized. The sample does not aim to be statistically representative, but rather to identify innovative practices and to collect the arguments developed by union players and management to justify their commitments and practices. RESULTS The study highlights the great diversity of practices in terms of support for parenthood. It highlights the role of the legal and conventional framework. It differentiates between different corporate commitment regimes, and shows that these regimes are dependent on historical gains in the provision of benefits, forms of work organization and the type of workforce employed.