In order to become more, “family friendly” NatWest will be introducing a policy which allows its male workers to take a full year off when they become fathers.
Equal Paid Parental Leave
Next year, NatWest will be introducing a policy which allows all new parents to take up to a year off regardless of their gender.
The bank previously only offered statutory paternity leave at full pay, which allowed male workers to take a maximum of 2 weeks off work.
Chief Executive of NatWest, Alison Rose has said that NatWest hopes to support “wider cultural change by promoting a shared approach to childcare responsibilities early on” and that they want “to do more to help families thrive”.
The change come after the bank completed an overhaul of their current employment policies, ensuring the policies were LGBT+ inclusive as well as introducing a policy where NatWest would pay for transgender staff to get privately-funded hormone treatment.
The introduction of the new policies are being made in an effort to attract a younger and more diverse workforce, in an attempt to shake-off the stereotypical nuance of a bank being “pale, male and stale”.
The Uneven Leave Landscape
In 2015, the UK government introduced Statutory Shared Parental Leave and Pay, this leave allowed parents to separate their leave allowance and share them between each other. The aim of the policy:
- Allow for increased flexibility; and
- Both parents were able to spend a significant amount of time with their child.
The issue is that the Shared Parental Leave Scheme has failed since its inception with less than 3-4% of eligible parents taking Shared Parental Leave.
Lucy Richards, Solicitor at Bater Law comments that “during my time as a Paralegal and Solicitor (4 years in total) I have only been asked to advise on Shared Parental Leave or been asked how an employee takes such leave, a handful of times. The reason for this I believe, is because it’s far too complex for both employees and employers”.
Shared Parental Leave is not the answer to creating a more level playing field for family friendly leave. Instead, the government should take note of NatWest’s policy, it would provide for greater balance and benefit for both mothers and fathers.”
Will the government introduce remove and replace Shared Parental Leave with a better statutory entitlement for parents is the BIG question.
A consultation into Shared Parental Leave was published in 2019, to date no decision as to the continuation of the scheme or replacement has been set out nor has anything been indicated to be published in the much anticipated Employment Bill.
Any updates on Shared Parental Leave, will be posted on our website.
If you are an employer and would like to discuss the option of introducing an equal opportunities paid parental leave policy or you would like to understand Shared Parental Leave in more detail, please do not hesitate to get in touch. You can email the employment team on [email protected]