Associate Director Shelley Hodgson, and her colleagues at Saros Research UK, have endorsed flexible working for many years. But now the company is embracing it further with the Successful Mums’ GLA Parenting Project.

“We appointed a new admin person in February 2022 but were struggling to fill another project manager role. Our new employee recommended Successful Mums and their job board as a great place to post vacancies that may be suitable for mums looking to get back into work. As a company, Saros has always attracted parents due to our flexible ethos. When our founder established the business, she worked from a shed in her garden. In time the business grew and attracted new staff; all of which were home-based and predominantly mums. When I joined 12 years ago, home-working wasn’t common – and it probably wasn’t seen as particularly professional either. But the pandemic changed all that.

Whilst this is a really positive and welcomed change, it has made recruitment difficult for Saros due to increased competition. We are no longer the minority offering flexible home-based or hybrid roles.

I reached out to Successful Mums to talk to them about advertising on their job board and they said this could be accessed free as part of their GLA Parenting Project, which helps companies on their journey to becoming an employer of choice.

The job board enables you to advertise flexible, part-time and hybrid job roles to reach out to a wide network of parents; this is a huge perk for us as we don’t have a massive recruitment budget. And as an employer which doesn’t shy away from recruiting mums and dads, it really is the perfect fit.

As part of the project, you have to complete a series of five mandatory learning modules which I found easy to do and informative. Saros is a very family-friendly employer and flexible working is ingrained in us, so it was great to complete the modules and have it validated that we are doing things well.

I found the women’s health and wellbeing module particularly enlightening and we’re now looking into getting a mental-health first aider later in the year. When we mentioned it to the team, a lot of people were interested in putting themselves forward for the role which is really encouraging.

You also have access to policy templates to adapt and utilise and as a result we have rolled out a menopause policy which has been well received by those it is relevant to. Having access to these also encouraged me to review all of our other policies and ensure we had everything covered.

As a working mum-of-two, I know how important it is to have flexibility in the workplace. I started at Saros when my children were very young and it made all the difference knowing that I, and my family, were incredibly supported. I never had to worry about taking time off for sports days or losing sleep about making up hours. It’s made for a very happy work-life balance.

I can really see the value of the GLA Parenting Project and would encourage other companies to give it a go.”

How do I sign up?

If you are interested in implementing flexible working practices in your workplace and would like to know more about our FREE GLA Parenting Project, please contact Emma Falsey, Employer and Recruitment Co-ordinator at Successful Mums Career Academy at or on 020 3633 9672.