The awards are run by the Working Families organisation, a campaigning charity which aims to help working parents and their employers find a better balance between home and work life. There are six awards, including the NSPCC Family Friendly Award, and registrations need to be completed before 29 July.

The Family Friendly Award is for “employers who can demonstrate commitment to their employees who are working parents of children and young people of all ages”. It is open to businesses of all sizes and sectors, and young people will be involved in the judging.

Last year’s winning family friendly employer was book publisher The Penguin Group, praised for having “a well established, deeply-embedded family friendly culture, which has enabled it to recruit high flyers from its competitors”. Susan Taylor from Penguin claims “the award brought us a huge degree of publicity and media interest, with coverage in both national newspapers and on TV – bringing our aim to be an employer of choice to the widest possible audience.”

Working Families is also running its own Innovation Award for cutting-edge work-life balance policy and practice, saying they “want to hear about exciting breakthrough ideas or changes in thinking which have made a real difference to how organisations perform”.