Leading professional services firm, Deloitte Australia, has taken out the number one spot in the 20 Best Australian Workplaces for New Dads 2019 List published by HBF's Direct Advice For Dads.
Deloitte's parental leave policy offers all new parents employed at the firm:
- 18 weeks paid leave, including superannuation
- Continuing superannuation payments during unpaid parental leave up to 34 weeks
- Extended time to take parental leave, with the option to spread their parental leave over 36 months and take it flexibly: either as one continuous period, two distinct periods, or part-time on a weekly basis, e.g. work 3 days, take 2 days paid parental leave
- Co-parenting - both parents may access paid and unpaid parental leave at the same time, or at different times.
Deloitte CEO, Richard Deutsch, said the firm was committed to gender equality and providing equal access to parental leave to men and women played an important part in achieving this.
"I'm extremely proud of our parental leave policy and the impact it's making, not just in supporting all Deloitte parents, but also as a conversation starter to challenge the long-held gender stereotypes that still exist in Australian society and the workplace, and to drive greater equality for everyone," he said.
"By providing more flexibility and choice on how all employees can use our parental leave policy, we have seen more men access and take parental leave. We see this as an important part of our culture, but we're also trying to shape best practice in Australia. If businesses like Deloitte can help push these things in the right direction, then we believe the business community and society as a whole will be better off."
Margaret Dreyer, National Lead Partner, Inclusion, Diversity & Wellbeing at Deloitte, said:
"The removal of the primary and secondary carer labels in our policy helped immensely to remove the misconception that parental leave was only for women. We simply call it 'parental leave' and it's available to both parents, regardless of gender or caring role. It's about fairness, inclusion and making things equal.
"We know that families come in all shapes and sizes, so we've also made it clear that our policy is for all types of families including birth, adoptive, surrogate, foster and same-sex parents, as well as intentionally calling out to our Deloitte dads to encourage them to take extended parental leave.
"We're proud to take the lead with an approach to parental leave that gives all parents more flexibility and choice in how they care for their family."
HBF's Direct Advice For Dads has published the 20 Best Australian Workplaces for New Dads List for the second year running to encourage more companies to offer parental leave policies for dads. Working with research consultancy CoreData, they analysed the policies of Australia's largest 500 companies by revenue, according to IBISWorld, and worked with parenting and workplace experts to determine what benefits were most important for new dads.
To qualify for consideration in the Direct Advice For Dads List, companies had to offer a minimum of two weeks paid secondary carer's leave, 12 weeks paid primary carer's leave, and flexible work practices to accommodate dads participating more fully in childcare responsibilities. Importantly, primary carer's leave had to be made available for a minimum of 12 months after the birth, allowing dads to use it should their partners return to work.
