Aviva is offering 26 weeks of leave at full pay to all new parents - what do you reckon?

[BojanaMumsnet]

Hello

We’ve just spotted that the UK’s largest insurer Aviva will be offering its employees equal parental leave. New mums and dads - whether they gave birth, adopted or have had a baby via surrogacy - will be able to take up to one year of leave, including 26 weeks leave on full basic pay after the arrival of a child. It will include full time and part time employees across all levels of the company and a minimum length of service will not be required.

This new policy will be offered to Aviva employees who become a parent on or after 19th November 2017 in the UK, Ireland, France, Singapore and Canada. Aviva says it’s working to extend this to all other businesses within the next year.

They say that this is “part of their strategy to create a diverse and inclusive working culture in which barriers to career progression are removed.”

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Will this help to tackle the motherhood penalty? Will it encourage more dads to take substantial parental leave? Is there anything else you’d like to see in parental leave policies? Do you work for Aviva or another company offering unusually good parental leave, and if so how do you think this affects the choices you (and your spouse, if applicable) make around parental leave?

Thanks
MNHQ

That's amazing!
My DH was desperate to take leave, but our choices were him take the leave on statutory pay, or me take it on statutory + 40% of my wage. It's a no brainer really. We couldn't justify throwing that money away. So he sacrificed his time with the baby.
In this day and age, why shouldn't either parent be able to be off? This is a great policy. I want to work for Aviva!

That sounds amazing! But, I wonder how men in Aviva are taking it up - is there a sense that you will be penalised for going on leave for 6 months/ a year?

I trust all staff who are childfree will be able to take one sabbatical of up to one year, with 26 weeks of it on full basic pay?

No, I thought not.

So, we're still a long way of equality, aren't we?

Im.a SAHM. DH's employers give dad's up to 6 weeks full pay and another 6 weeks at a high percentage. It's not taken up very often though, the guys don't want to penalise their careers.

It has to be paid for somehow.

Given that Aviva refused to give me a job on the basis of a 4 day week so I could care for my kids, even though they admitted I was fully qualified and that was their only reason, I'm unimpressed.

Blah so we can assume women at that company find maternity leave sets their careers back.

I think it's great. Maternity leave can cause real, long-lasting problems for a family's finances as well as (usually) the mother's career prospects. Anything that can help counteract this should be applauded.

ShatnersWig - what a ridiculous thing to post. Why should non-parents get a sabbatical? I'm genuinely baffled by your response. Maternity leave isn't a fucking holiday!

I think, despit4 legal intervention, maternity leave can cause career set backs in most companies.

I think that sounds absolutely amazing and it would 100% make me consider Aviva for my next position. Well done Aviva for such a forward thinking policy.

I agree with ShatnersWig - parents are just one group of people who might need time off for a caring responsibility, but there's no provision for those who might, for instance, be caring for a seriously ill partner.

Aviva's move is fantastic, but much more needs to be done to allow employees to balance work and broader family/caring responsibilities. However, well done to Aviva for this step in the right direction!

What a progressive policy. My preference for all companies and the law, if needed, would be an overall parental leave policy. Even with the introduction of shared parental leave, maternity policies are often more generous so mothers may feel obliged to take the bulk of the leave.

I think it’s great and helping to move things in the right direction.

The more companies that do this the better. If women get better parental leave pay than men then most families will take the sensible financial decision to have the mother at home with the baby. There needs to be an incentive for men to do their fair share becore we get full equality.

I think it's going to be even more annoying for those who might need time to care for elderly parents or those who are just childfree.

it's incredibly generous if you want to use it, but these policies don't exist in a vaccum - they affect other staff, and a new baby is not the only need people have. I've also had parents of older children tell me they didn't feel the need for a block of time at the start, but more time across the years. Real progress doesn't necessarily focus all the time at the new baby stage, and also real progress should recognise caring responsibilities overall.

Plus staff with none of these - if you can get paid time off to do something that was your choice, this should apply in other ways, not just for child care or elderly care etc.

Caring is a different matter and while I absolutely agree there should be more provision, bringing it up on a thread about enhanced parental leave is just derailing the issue.

Having better provision for parents doesn’t take away from others. These parents at Aviva having more does not mean anyone else has less; they have the same as before. If anything, progressive policies for parents open the door to the possibility for others to benefit, as has been the case with the right to request flexible working which began as a policy for parents and has now been extended to all.

As a society we need people to have children and we all have some responsibility to facilitate that. These babies will one day pay our pensions (if we still have one!), staff our services and drive our economy so they’re vital.

I think it’s a great policy - I was stony broke after mat leave both times (14 weeks full pay).

The company I work for already offers something similar. I believe two men have taken it up since it began.

So this is great. But we also need a cultural shift.

Moving "Having better provision for parents doesn’t take away from others. "

this is a tough one. I've had HR in a couple of jobs say themselves that they feel it does - it is partly the problem of inadequate staffing and cover of course. But I can see the argument of having some kind of rule that would cover a compromise - flexible benefits including extended leave periods etc, or offers of sabbaticals that could be used to cover other things.

Policies for ill family seem to be particularly lacking e.g. when a parent is slowly dying - sorry, I realise this is depressing - there's often no cover at all and HR departments will say that they cannot cover for all these human circumstances while expected to also cover parental leave. I wish it didn't impact but it does.

I didn't mean to derail - I used adoption leave which is a bit different in the place I was when I used it, but generally I think there's a rush to cover parents of new babies while forgetting about other sets of circumstances. And we were asked our opinions.

I have one friend working in a place where she was sort of allowed to split maternity leave over two years in order to spread needs. That kind of flexibility might not always be possible of course, but it was good to know she could return to work very quickly after the birth and still have some time allocated that she could use later.

It's certainly progressive but I'd like to see them take this and run with it. Offer leave for people who take up a caring position with family.

It does take the burden off a bit if leave is being shared between parents and policies like this facilitate exactly that. I also like there’s the same entitlement for adoption and that’s long over due.

I think there is a risk of coming across as a bit peevish to say “well I don’t get X so why should parents get it”. I’m not saying that’s what you’re saying Nyx1, I think your point is much more nuanced but I do feel other types of leave are a separate issue and deserving of specific and considered debate.

Maternity leave is a basic right. It was hard won. At the moment the general expectation is that women will take time off after the birth of a child and this is embedded by employers offering enhancements to mothers but not fathers. This new policy challenges that assumption and that’s good.

I have seen some very kind and supportive arrangements made to deal with caring responsibilities and IMO they should be the norm.

Like many things in employment so much depends on where you work and that’s not fair. We should be better overall.

I work in HR and had a long career in management first :)

Moving - yes, it wasn't the norm to get adoption leave when I had it, it was just lucky that I worked in a place that had it.

I suppose my main thing is that I think maternity leave is all right as it is - awaits flaming - and it's time to sort out numerous other issues. I agree it's a hard won right, of course.

My company offers 6 months full pay (plus the 6 statutory), plus shared parental leave. My husband’s organization also offer SPL, and if he takes some of our SPL in the first six months, he will also receive full pay.

We are working it out so that I take off 9 months (full pay for 6, statutory for 3). He will join me For 2 of the first 6 months (at full pay) and he will then take our final month by himself at statutory pay.

We are both very lucky! We both had to serve minimum time periods to be eligible though.

It really isn’t alright though. The current assumption is that women will take leave to have and care for babies which has implications for the gender pay gap, sexism and discrimination in the workplace because it takes away choice. It’s could also be argued it’s not fair on men - but I’m not about to go down that rabbit hole!

This is not an either or, you can be supportive of progressive policies that make things better in one area while supporting or actively campaigning in other areas. It’s a bit like when people say women shouldn’t care about sex discrimination at work because women abroad have it so much worse. You can care about and do both.

It really isn’t a discrete choice and giving better rights to one group does not take them away from others but increases the likelihood of rights being extended across the board for all. This has precedence with flexible leave and in other areas.

It’s not even like it needs that much thought - offer what you give to the women to the men too. It is much harder to introduce new policies for caring or other important things because they’re new and need more thought and work. Personally I think significant changes like carer’s leave should be on the statute because optional/government guidance means it just doesn’t happen in so many places.

The more choice we have around work and family life the better. Let’s celebrate the small victories and keep plugging away at the other issues.

It's not derailing, it's looking a the whole idea of leave to perform caring responsibilities which are of wider use to society. Leave during the first year a child joins the family is simply one form of that kind of leave. And does needs to be considered alongside the others. Because if enhancing one reduces the others, this would not necessarily benefit the organisation.