Q2 has marked a new chapter in life and work, with several steps forward. Coronavirus restrictions began easing, and the vaccination programme speeded up, just after a new official code of practice came into place on the right to disconnect from work.

Around the same time, the Tánaiste also invited submissions on putting the right to seek remote working into law.

In this context, Legal Island discuss what the next phase holds for employers, with a focus on work-life balance, particularly in relation to working families.

Over the previous year, the pandemic had fundamentally transformed our work-life dynamic, further blurring the lines between work and family. The Department of Enterprise and Employment described both new public policy initiatives as part of Leo Varadkar’s plan “to create more flexible family-friendly working arrangements, including working from home and working more flexible hours”.

• Learn what Ireland’s leading employers are doing now, and next, to engage their workforces and enable work-life balance in a new hybrid working world
• Focus in on how to help working parents and carers meet the novel challenges ahead as we move towards the summer, and then the Autumn.
• Identify the lessons worth keeping from how working parents and carers coped with periodic lockdowns, and the school-free world. What can employers continue to do to provide practical support with care.

In this podcast, Legal Island is joined by Oliver Daniels, Client Services Manager and Oliver Black, Commercial Director, Bright Horizons to consider what it means to be a family-friendly employer in Ireland in – and after - the ‘Time of Covid’ and in a new world of work-life balance.