Released On 31 March 2017
News from Cityparents HQ
Our Cityfathers network turns 3
How time flies! Almost exactly three years ago, following the success of our Citymothers network we launched Cityfathers with guest speaker Nick Clegg, then Deputy Prime Minister - pictured below at the launch event with Cityparents Founder and CEO Louisa – to offer similar support to working fathers across the City.
Since then we’re delighted to have welcomed over 1,500 Cityfathers members and to have organised a range of father-focused events.
To celebrate this 3rd anniversary of Cityfathers, in this edition of our newsletter we feature a number of contributions from men across the City and Canary Wharf:
- Andrea Orcel, President of UBS Investment Bank, talks to us about his career and how he makes time for his parenting responsibilities.
- Tom Beardshaw from the Executive Coaching Consultancy advises how fathers and prospective fathers can successfully combine hands-on parenting whilst keeping up with the demands of a City career.
- Two fathers from different City firms, Matt and Daren, talk to us about their experiences of taking shared parental leave and caring for a child with a serious health condition.
- Coach Brad McCaw talks about the importance of ‘bringing your whole self to work’ and acting as a role model for others in your organisation.
- Taking a broader view across the City, we share some perspectives from Cityfathers members about what support they want from their employers, what firms are offering and what more needs to be done.
Our new CityWellbeing events
Sharp-eyed members will have spotted that our Events schedule on our Cityparents website now shows 3 streams of events, not just 2:
- Our CityParents events focus on parenting and family-related topics;
- Our CityCareers events offer expert advice on getting ahead at work, building soft skills and progressing your career
- A new, 3rd stream, CityWellbeing, lists those events aiming to help restore or maintain physical and mental wellbeing both inside and outside of the workplace, and also events about children’s wellbeing
Our Cityparents Network Manager Milly gives a rundown of recent and upcoming events, so do take a minute to put some advance dates in your diary.
Cityworks’ first 3 months
Our new employer network, launched in January, is for HR, Diversity & Inclusion and Wellbeing professionals in City firms and we’re delighted to have been signing up new corporate members to Cityworks and holding our first events on policies for carer employees and gender pay gap reporting. Coming up this quarter are events on mental health and resilience policies, BAME networks and improving racial diversity and policies to support LGBT employees. We’re also delighted to welcome as guest speakers later this year Fiona Cannon OBE, Head of Diversity & Inclusion at Lloyds Banking Group and Founder member of the Agile Future Forum; Matt Elliott, People Director at Virgin Money; and Kirsty Bashforth, former Group Head of Organisational Effectiveness at BP.
We are currently offering an introductory launch discount on corporate membership of Cityworks. If you’re interested to know more, membership packages are explained here or please email Helen at helen@cityparents.co.uk.
Our Mentoring Scheme
We’ve just closed our spring application window for our cross-industry Cityparents Mentoring Scheme and with our Scheme partners, Moving Ahead, we’ll begin matching mentee applicants to our pool of mentors. We’re looking forward to our launch event in May where we’ll welcome our newly matched pairs, hear from speakers and enjoy the opportunity to network over drinks.
The next application window opens in the autumn, in the meantime more information about our Mentoring Scheme can be found here. Alternatively, if you’re looking for more in-depth career advice or to address work life balance or other issues, then we also offer high-quality 1:1 coaching support to members through Cityparents Coaching.
Keep in touch
If you want to get in touch generally with any other suggestions or questions, you can always post a question or catch the latest updates via our Facebook page, Twitter account and Linked In group. We look forward to talking with you online or at an event soon.