GRAHAM O'SULLIVAN is a very excited man. In January next year, the Citigroup employee will become a father for the first time. He is already gathering the books he loved as a child to give to his firstborn.

“You start with the highest aspirations,” said O’Sullivan, 30, a project manager. “I want to be there for my child as much as possible. But I also want to continue to achieve at Citi.”

O’Sullivan has “concerns” about how family and work will fit after his wife, Rachael, who works in public-sector regeneration, has had their baby. “Like any professional couple, we will have to find a balance,” he said.

The difficulties faced by working mothers have been the focus of corporate-diversity initiatives for some time. Too many talented and highly skilled women are lost to firms because they aren’t sufficiently supported after they become pregnant and when they return to work after maternity leave.

Citi has had considerable success with initiatives aimed at keeping women on board and now it is turning its attention to fathers, who co-create babies and then find themselves legally entitled to only two weeks’ statutory paternity pay – or full pay if their employer, like Citi, offers enhanced terms – before they return to work full time.

“Fatherhood is changing,” said Carolanne Minashi, Citi’s head of diversity. “In 1950 only 5% of fathers attended births, but by 1997 it was 97%. In the mid1970s fathers spent less than 15 minutes a day in activities with their children; by the 1990s it was two hours a day.

“We will retain our focus on helping mothers, but fathers are a crucial part of the overall parenthood puzzle,” she said.

Minashi is convinced that good fatherhood policies and a supportive pro-father culture can offer huge retention benefits, not just for Citi but for UK plc. Last month Chris Parke, of the consultancy Talking Talent, led Citi's first workshop for 24 new and expectant dads, including O’Sullivan.

Few businesses are considered as macho as investment banking, but the session was so well received that it is to become a regular fixture.

“It was new territory and I wasn’t sure how it would go down,” said Minashi. In fact, she discovered that if you provide the right opportunity, new dads bond just like new mums.

O’Sullivan thought it very useful. He learnt about Citi benefits such as its childcare vouchers and emergency childcare scheme. Just as important, though, was the chance to share with other men concerns about postbirth work-family balance and to receive advice about practicalities such as coping with sleepless nights.

O’Sullivan said his manager – who has a young child – was very supportive, but for the less lucky the workshop offered advice on how to make the whole transition easier. Support, understanding and flexibility make a company “100% more attractive”, he said.

How does O’Sullivan feel about the government’s controversial new proposals to allow women to transfer some of their statutory maternity leave – which is expected to be increased from 39 to 52 weeks – to their partners, allowing couples to share the load more easily?

O’Sullivan said he and his wife were interested in the plans, but for him extending leave for men was not the key issue. “The real challenge is making it all work when you are back at the office,” he said.

Minashi thinks the government’s proposals are “interest-ing” but doesn’t expect many of Citi’s fathers would opt for extended leave. Requests from fathers for a reduced working week to spend more time with their children are very rare. What she expects to see more of are requests for a little flexibility – perhaps to go home early once a week to put children to bed or attend a school play.

Duncan Fisher, chief executive of the Fatherhood Institute, a think tank, said he was pleased to see the focus switching to fathers in companies with forward-looking diversity policies such as Citi, BT and Lloyds TSB. However, he thinks more radical action is needed if child-rearing duties are to be more equally shared.

“In the UK there is a culture of male, full-time, long hours working,” he said. “Before babies arrive, men and women are equal and both do well at work. When they become parents, they generally revert to the old 1950s roles of mother in the home and father in full-time work. It means the distancing of dad from childcare and the pulling in of mum. The leave system – 52 weeks’ maternity for mum and two weeks’ paternity for dad – simply rams that all home."

“Whenever you take time off, there’s a price to pay in terms of status and career progression– whatever companies say – so you don’t want both parents carrying that penalty," he said.

Fisher also argues that because 80% of men still earn more than their wives or girlfriends, it makes sense for the man to continue working. He said the government should be bold and take the existing right that allows both parents with young children to have three months’ unpaid leave and make that leave compulsory and paid. “You only change a culture by really going for it,” he said.

Fisher said the Citi scheme was yet more evidence society was moving in the right direction but argued that the recession would set back progress.

David Pardey at the Institute of Leadership and Management, agrees that the economic downturn will put the brake on innovative family-friendly schemes and also on employees’ willingness to show interest in work-life balance and flexible-working initiatives.

Pardey said that in a booming economy, employers had to compete hard for the best talent and so develop a “menu” of benefits that could be tailored to particular employees and new recruits. “Family-friendly policies are part of that,” he said. “The problem is that in a downturn employees simply feel relieved that someone is willing to employ them. They keep their heads down.”

However, Minashi insists that cutting-edge, progressive schemes such as the fathers’ workshops are not dependent on a bull market. “When you compare the level of investment needed for the workshops with the payback in terms of increased employee loyalty and satisfaction, there’s no comparison,” she said. “The pilot went ahead two weeks ago despite the state of the economy.”

She said that whatever the economic situation, companies still had to compete for the best talent – and the culture they offered to all employees, including new fathers, could give them the crucial edge.

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