Parental Leave Toolkit Shortlisted for Three Prestigious UK App Awards

The Parental Leave Toolkit has been shortlisted for B2B/Business App of the Year, App of the Year – Productivity and UK App of the Year 2019. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony and gala dinner on Tuesday 26th November at The Montcalm Marble Arch in London.

The Parental Leave Toolkit is a digital app that supports both parents-to-be as they prepare to embark on parental leave and their managers.  Recognising the increasing needs of today’s working families and employers, and the number of organisations with geographically dispersed working populations, the Parental Leave Toolkit offers a dynamic and scalable coaching solution – delivering all the benefits of traditional coaching in a digital toolkit: a one-stop-shop with a variety of interactive coaching tools, comprehensive checklists, professional and personal advice, and back-up childcare.

The app is fully inclusive for maternity, paternity, adoption, surrogacy and shared parental leave in the UK.  It hones in on the professional aspects of maintaining a career and planning for an effective return whilst also going through this transition as either a new parent or a growing family. Significantly, the app is also designed to support line managers prepare as one of their team departs and as they return to the workplace.

Parents and managers receive a rich, individualised programme that can be easily and effectively created, taking less than a minute to create a personal plan based on parental leave type and dates. Families and managers are also encouraged to share their own experience to provide anecdotal advice to other new parents, coaches and managers through the app’s forum function. 

Ben Black, Founder of the app, said, “We are delighted that our Parental Leave Toolkit has been recognised as a finalist for three UK App Awards. As a result of the app, we have successfully coached thousands of clients’ employees through the new parent transition with outstanding results. We have had fantastic feedback from individual users as well as employers who have noted a big impact on talent retention rates.”

Deborah Richards, Diversity & Inclusion Leader at IBM, UK and Ireland, praised the app, “As a global technology business operating out of 19 different UK locations with more than 10,000 employees, you could say the Parental Leave Toolkit was made for us. IBM have worked with Bright Horizons for many years to provide our employees with virtual parental leave training and coaching sessions, the transition to an online/app based solution made a huge amount of sense. It has made an enormous difference to our mobile workforce: Our parental leave coaching is now available to all our employees in the UK and Ireland, it supports our geographically widespread population and has proved to be a highly accessible way of providing an inclusive and valuable solution.”

The UK App Awards celebrate and reward excellence for apps developed in the United Kingdom or for the UK market. The awards are judged by an influential and respected panel of experts in the industry.