Maternity policy is a conversation that has been around for decades; the problem statement is our most valuable resource is our people. We have a group of working women who are assets to the organization. We invest in them via time, finance and development, and we lose that tremendous value they have with the insight, the skillset and experience because someone chooses to have a baby.
If that is the trigger point what do you want to do? How can you accommodate a physically difficult period of time for your employee and allow them to cherish their baby, but still have the opportunity to continue to contribute to the workplace? The answer is time. Our maternity policy reflects that classic business rationale of securing our investment and protecting our talent. Fundamentally, our decision was based on the fact that it is the right thing to do, but also as a company we benefit.
Vodafone commissioned some research from one of the Big Four accounting firms that showed the cost differentiation between giving more favorable maternity leave versus replacing an employee and training a new one. For companies, it’s actually much more cost-effective to retain existing female employees rather than lose them when they have children.
The policy is that you get four months full pay after the birth of your child and when you return, you spend six months working only four days of the work week but on full pay. For most women more time is also a financial incentive due to the cost of childcare and so forth. The policy allows people to make choices around their life and their work, in what can be quite a difficult period when you’re not sleeping! This policy gives you the ability to make decisions for yourself, rather than feeling decisions are being made for you. It’s exactly what we need to to do at this trigger point for women’s careers, when many women leave the workforce.
In adding the ability to work flexibly, it was in recognition that after four months demands on a mother do not ease up. This can be particularly true for women who choose to become mothers at an older age because you have gone through a substantial part of your career, and how you add value and contribute to the company tends to be quite demanding in terms of commitment as well as time. The policy forces us as employers and managers to respect the fact that our employees do not work one day a week when they return. In the press of business it can be hard to remember when it is someone’s non-working day, but enshrining this in policy does force the employer to keep this as a priority for line managers.
From the employee’s perspective, it allows returning women the space to really devote themselves to their job and really kick some butt when they are in the office.
Long hours are too often confused with commitment and value but, every woman who has taken advantage of this is really more effective in those four days than some people are in five.
I believe that it is the right thing to do. No matter how good a support system, childcare is always harder on women than men. The dilemmas of not giving all at home or at work is challenging and that is a constant issue for women. By taking this into account as an employer we are reducing stress on women and allowing them to prioritize their personal life.
This is an international initiative and it actually moved really quickly from inception to final policy because we had the executive right behind it – it took a total of three months.
The thing about tone from the top is you really can’t underestimate it. Within my organization in the Americas we have constantly reinforced it as part of our culture, even thought it’s at odds with societal norms in the US.
As a line manager, I was thinking ‘I haven’t budgeted’, and all of those things that go through your mind. What is amazing is that everyone figured out a way to deal with it exceptionally well; really the only way to kickstart something like this was just to do it.
There has been a tremendous amount of interest from other general counsel and their teams in the US around how this is playing out for us, particularly as they see it’s working and the world hasn’t ground to a halt.
It’s going to be a key issue for all companies as we face a war for talent, and companies that can provide more flexibility will take key female talent from those who don’t.
Right now we’re not able to offer the maternity policy to same-sex couples or a man as primary care giver, as the struggle is how to do this within the current confines of the employment laws of the US. That said, I believe we will do it. Over the course of the past 18 months, we have really ingrained this way of thinking in our company culture in ways that touch everyone. We have created an environment where we give managers lots of control around where someone needs a more flexible working schedule or reduced hours, whoever they may be.