UAE: Sheikh Mohamed honours parent-friendly companies

President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, on Tuesday honoured the winners of the first cycle of the Parent-friendly Label (PFL), at Qasr Al Bahar.

Launched by the Abu Dhabi Early Childhood Authority (ECA), the initiative encourages semi-government, private and third sector entities in the emirate to adopt parent-friendly work practices and policies.

The Label supports working parents and encourages a better work-life balance.

The six national organisations recognised for earning the PFL, for their parent-friendly policies and practices, included HSBC Bank, Masdar, Emirates Nature-WWF, Abu Dhabi Motorsports Management, Etihad Airways, and Silal.

Sheikh Mohamed praised the efforts made by parents to empower young children, ensure their development and wellbeing, fulfil their developmental needs, and support the national strategy to prepare the UAE for the next 50 years by developing the community and preparing children for the future.

He urged the PFL winners to keep up adopting and developing the best practices that impact children positively.

He emphasised the need to streamline this initiative to enable all organisations in the country to apply the PFL initiative and inculcate parent-friendly practices and policies in workplaces as an essential part of a positive organisational culture.

Sheikh Theyab bin Mohamed, Chairman of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Court and Chairman of ECA, affirmed that parent-friendly workplaces enable working parents to contribute to their children’s emotional, cognitive and behavioural development during their early childhood.

Sheikh Theyab said that the initiative contributes to empowering working parents to narrow the gap between the public and private sectors in terms of work policies and benefits to parents.

“The PFL promotes Abu Dhabi’s position as a child-friendly city by encouraging innovation at workplaces and creating innovative future work environments that support various developmental aspects, particularly those related to child development,” Sheikh Theyab said.

• Abu Dhabi