Working Dads Employer Awards

For the awards, we have developed four key areas of focus based on existing research and common activities. These areas either represent best practice or highlight opportunities for improvement across the economy. Since we aim to encourage positive activity, an applying organisation does not need to excel in all areas to be recognised through these awards. Organisations can be acknowledged for excellence in a single area, such as flexible working, or for outstanding performance across all four areas.

The nomination categories are:

• Parenting Policies
• Flexible Working
• Support for Returning Fathers
• Leadership and Culture

We are committed to promoting continuous improvement and recognise that good practice can vary significantly across sectors and organisations of different sizes. In particular, we acknowledge that small and medium‑sized enterprises (SMEs) and some public‑sector organisations are unlikely to have the same resources to enhance parental leave policies as some multinationals but may find other creative ways to support working parents; this will be reflected in the judging criteria.

Some past winners of the awards include: E.ON, Nationwide Building Society, QBE, Pepsico UK & Ireland, BMJ Publishing Group Ltd, The Co-op Group Ltd, PwC, John Lewis Partnership, Aon, University of Oxford, Now Teach, Centrica, Suffolk County Council, Waltham Forest Council, Aviva, and Vodafone.

Why supporting working dads is so important

Supporting working fathers is central to promoting family wellbeing, supporting parental mental health, reducing gender inequalities in the labour market, and enhancing organisational attraction and retention. Research consistently demonstrates that persistent gender pay disparities are closely linked to the unequal distribution of childcare responsibilities, with women continuing to undertake the majority of unpaid care work. Addressing these inequalities therefore requires greater support for fathers to engage in caregiving and childcare responsibilities.

Improved support for working fathers, including access to family-friendly policies and supportive workplace cultures, can facilitate more equal sharing of care. Crucially, this must be embedded within organisational leadership and culture, with senior leaders playing an important role in fostering environments in which fathers are actively encouraged and supported to participate in family life.

Enabling fathers to spend time at home bonding with their child and supporting their partner can have important benefits for parental wellbeing, family relationships, and mental health. In addition, greater support for working fathers has wider societal implications, including positive outcomes for children and progress towards greater gender equality both within the home and the workplace.

The application process

For any award category applied for, the submitting organisation will be asked to provide UK‑relevant quantitative data, where available, and to answer open‑ended questions. If you do not collect some of this data, do not worry, contact Sarah Forbes (sarah.forbes@york.ac.uk) or Holly Birkett (h.birkett@bham.ac.uk). You may still be able to secure the award in that category.

The quantitative questions cover topics such as the total number of part-time working men in the last financial year (under the flexible working category). The qualitative questions explore areas such as how your organisation’s culture and leadership support fathers (under the leadership and culture category). Also, whatever the category, an applying organisation would need to supply a testimonial from a working dad. 

The application process is designed to be straightforward while encouraging a degree of self-selection (ie, organisations can choose which of the four areas they wish to submit to). Responses to the open-ended questions will be assessed by an expert panel consisting of third-sector organisations and academics with expertise in this area.

If your organisation submitted to a previous Working Dads Employer Awards, you will see some additional questions around this asking you how you have built on previous feedback from the awards.

Entry criteria and guidance

Any employer that pays their UK employees holiday pay and has a presence and activity in the UK is eligible to submit an entry. Only one entry may be made per employer.

Entries from all sectors/industries are welcome. Please focus only on activity in the UK and UK data in your entry, and make sure that you have senior management approval to complete the nomination form. Entry is only available via the online Qualtrics platform.

Important dates

• Important dates including when the nominations will open and close, as well as the exact date of the ceremony will be listed here in due course. Please know the nominations will likely open early 2027 and the ceremony will likely take place in Autumn 2027. 

When filling out your nomination form, ensure to:

• Be clear and concise in your answers, use plain English and avoid acronyms. There is a strict character count for each qualitative question, which you cannot go above.
• Explain the obvious - remember the assessors will not be familiar with your policies and procedures and they will not know what the company is as the application remains anonymous.
• Include any evidence of impacts where possible, including quantitative evidence. Preferably, this should be publicly accessible evidence (if possible).

Supporting information

You are not required to add any additional supporting information that is not requested in the application, and any additional information will not be considered by the panel of judges (assessors). Although, if you have publicly available evidence (ie, publicly accessible webpages, press releases, blogs etc) these weblinks can be included in your nomination submission where requested.

How to enter

Entries will be made through the Qualtrics survey platform. Qualtrics is an easy-to-use web-based survey tool used by businesses and researchers across the globe. Qualtrics meets the industry best practice standards. No word document submissions via email will be permitted, so do make sure to use the Qualtrics platform to complete the submission.

A word document version of the nomination form is available for the convenience of preparing the nomination submission for submission, but you must ensure to transfer this into Qualtrics before the nominations close. 

The word document for the 2027 awards will become available when the nominations open, but should you wish to start preparation prior to the launch you are welcome to contact Sarah Forbes (sarah.forbes@york.ac.uk) and she can provide you with the 2025 nomination word document. This will help you get started prior to the nominations for the 2027 awards opening, but please know that the 2027 form will have minor differences to the 2025 nominations form. Applications for the 2027 awards must comply with the 2027 nomination form.

If you are interested in applying to the 2027 Working Dads employer Awards, please get in touch with Sarah Forbes (sarah.forbes@york.ac.uk) and Holly Birkett (h.birkett@bham.ac.uk) to discuss your application. 

Confidentiality and anonymisation

All aspects of your application will be treated as highly confidential. Should we wish to cite material contained in your application in a public way, we will only do so if we explicitly obtain your permission first. We will share anonymised answers with the judging panel (assessors) for the awards.

Other than your organisation name at the beginning of the document, we ask that you endeavour to avoid explicitly mentioning the name of the organisation throughout your submission to ensure it will be judged anonymously. Please note that should your organisation win an award in any category, the identity of your organisation will be made public knowledge.

A small number of organisations will be chosen to develop case studies from amongst the winners. By submitting the nomination form, your organisation agrees to support and contribute to the development of a best practice case study.