Working parents and new trends in the human resources management in Polish companies

Barbara Godlewska-Bujok, University of WarsawKrzysztof Walczak, Warsaw UniversityThe aim of the proposal is to present the outcomes of the research project on the practices of the companies in the field of granting additional parental entitlements to workers. We try to consider whether it becomes a part of companies' strategies to enhance human resources management.The project consist of analysing the companies’ sources of labour law (i.e. collective agreements, statutes, regulations, and so forth) to assess empirically what type of policies companies provide towards parental rights and entitlements of their employees: are they only limited to the rights and entitlements provided for by the national labour law legislation, or maybe they offer a wider range of rights and entitlements, reaching far away the limit defined by the state legislation. Answering the question is important because might prove the importance of employees’s living conditions for the employer. It may also prove the common-interest approach by employers.Respect for family life, in particular in relation to care over children, has a very special meaning. It should be remembered that Polish legislation offers very generous system of parental rights and benefits, which may be considered as generous even in universal dimension. Moreover, the tradition of granting maternal/parental right and entitlements has been commenced almost a hundred years ago, just few years later than regaining the independence (1918).