One point that appeared in many of the employers’ responses to the specific questions on career breaks was the willingness to carry out more than their statutory obligations.  For example, over 80% of the employers said that they would be prepared to hold a job open for longer than the statutory maternity period.

Almost all of the employers said they would give some sort of training and updating to career break returners.  The general feeling was that employers were keen to retain good staff and would take a flexible approach where possible.  Some employers could not be as flexible as others.  For instance , 43% could not consider part time work because of the team work nature of engineers’ work and the need to be there at the same time as everyone else in order to liaise, only a very small minority were hostile to the whole idea .