With tales of doom and gloom pervading the news for so long now, you'd be forgiven for thinking that there is nothing good going on in the world. But this month has seen a positive news story emerge about global investment bank, Goldman Sachs, changing its approach to parental leave, with an aim to promote workplace equality. This is an important step for a company (Goldman Sachs International) posting a revealing mean gender pay gap of 50.6%, but also more generally for employers and employees across the UK, with the hope that other businesses will follow suit.
New parents employed by Goldman in the UK will now be offered 26 weeks of fully paid parental leave, regardless of their gender or whether they become parents through birth, surrogacy or adoption. The company follows in the footsteps of two FTSE 100 companies, Standard Life Aberdeen and Vodafone (and a number of other global names), who also recently announced plans to try to equalise parental leave rights for woman and men. The hope is that by creating some symmetry in terms of childcare responsibilities this will lead to greater equality of pay and opportunity for the sexes. It is also hoped that the change in culture will help eliminate some of the stigma that can be associated with employees taking time out of the workplace.
The Government introduced shared parental leave in April 2015, with similar honourable aims. Unfortunately however, uptake has been disappointingly low, with TUC data suggesting that in 2018 only around 1% of eligible parents made use of the scheme. Research suggests that the reason is largely financial – although there are no doubt also cultural factors at play. Whilst a number of employers enhance maternity pay, the vast majority of employers do not offer any enhanced shared parental pay ("SPP"). With statutory SPP currently at the rate of £148.68 a week or 90% of average weekly earnings, whichever is the lower, it appears that for the majority of new parents it is simply not affordable to make use of the scheme.
The TUC is calling for paternity pay to be increased to at least minimum wage levels and for increased periods of leave for fathers in their own right (rather than relying on their partner to give up some of their maternity leave). It seems that whilst the Government has been slow to implement change (no doubt distracted by other matters), businesses like Goldman are taking note.
But Goldman's "pathways to parenthood" initiative goes beyond simply extending parental leave rights. Employees will also be offered a stipend of up to $20,000 (£15,407) for egg freezing and egg donation, as well as stipends for adoption and surrogacy. This is in addition to the company's offering since last year of IVF support, breast-milk shipping and emergency nannies. These benefits/incentives have attracted much comment, both positive and negative, with one commentator at The Independent describing some of the measures as "dystopian". However, Goldman certainly isn't the first employer to offer these types of benefits and it's unlikely to be the last. A number of employers are looking at extending their package of employee benefits to encourage recruitment and retention of staff. If these benefits also have the effect of addressing the gender pay gap and workplace culture, then it seems like a win-win situation for employers and employees alike.
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