Booze giant Diageo has probably been responsible for a fair few unscheduled ‘sick’ days in its time, given the company owns Guinness, Bell’s, Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Gordon’s and Captain Morgan among many other drinks.
Now, it’s going to be involved in a lot more scheduled time off, after unveiling a pretty amazing plan for parental leave. All employees who become parents – whether biologically, through surrogacy or by adopting – will be eligible for 52 weeks of parental leave, with the first 26 paid. The scheme is open to women and men.
What a great move. Everyone seems to gain by it. Parents get to spend more time learning how to be parents without worrying about finances. Kids get to spend more time with their less-stressed-than-they-would-be-otherwise parents.
Diageo gets to pat itself on the back but probably also retain happy employees for longer, as they’ll be ready to come back from leave rather than rushing back earlier than they’d like and ending up leaving anyway. And drinkers get to continue enjoying their booze.
A study by University College London found that monetary issues were the biggest reason families aren’t taking the full parental leave they’re entitled to – apparently only 8% do, because of the financial hit caused by the difference in statutory maternity pay and statutory paternity pay. It also uncovered were concerns that, in a self-perpetuating cycle of low uptake, it could damage the father’s career trajectory. The study’s authors concluded that employers enhancing both fathers’ pay and flexibility as to when the leave could be taken would lead to increased uptake.
The model Diageo is adopting seems to fix that. New dads can take six months on full pay and then go back to work if their financial situation demands it, or take the full year and make the six months of pay last. This is in stark contrast to what is usually on offer – the UCL study gives the example of a man on £50,000 effectively taking an 80% pre-tax pay cut with the shared parental leave system, a colossal drop in pay that few families could cope with.
“True gender equality in the working world requires fundamental changes to a broad range of working practices, including a shake-up of the policies and cultural norms around parental leave,” said Diageo’s chief HR officer Mairéad Nayager. And they aren’t alone in trying to improve matters. O2 recently announced it was increasing paternity leave to 14 weeks, and insurers Aviva have reported that two thirds of of its male parent employees took six full months off after they enhanced statutory pay to match maternity pay.
Employers can have a tendency (an illegal one) not to want to hire women they think are likely to have children. With equal leave, they’d be just as likely to be mildly inconvenienced by a man doing it. More companies giving both parents equal leave lessens conscious and unconscious discrimination. We’ll drink to that.