parental leave
benefit
Over the past 12 months, Gold Road has had an increased focus on sustainability, with Diversity and Inclusion being an important part of our sustainability objectives and our culture. As a business we value the positive impact that diversity in the workplace offers, and we strive to ensure our workplace practices attract and retain the best talent.
In early 2021, we embarked on a journey of reviewing our Parental Leave Standard as we were committed to making a significant improvement to the benefits offered to our current and future employees. The main goal of the review was to:
- Improve our benefits to be more than the minimum legislative requirements, while considering industry peers and leading parental leave benefits
- Consider the needs of parents in our workforce, valuing that not every journey as a new parent will be the same
- Ensure fairness and equity (considering gender and same-sex couples)
- Remove barriers for accessing the benefit
- Consider and respect unique circumstances (e.g. stillbirth and surrogacy)
- Implement mechanisms that encourage and support employees to return to the workplace
- Complement our existing talent attraction and retention strategies
The People and Culture team undertook a significant amount of research, leveraging information from WGEA reporting, publicly disclosed information from peers within the industry and other platforms such as Work180. It was important for our business that this benefit was considered and well thought through to ensure it met the varying needs of our people. We also wanted to ensure our approach progressive for our industry and a business of our size.
In July 2021, we were proud to communicate our new parental leave benefits with our workforce, a significant milestone for Gold Road.
Parental Leave Benefits
- 16 weeks paid parental leave as the primary carer
- 3 weeks paid parental leave as the secondary carer
- Continuation of superannuation contributions and a top up of long service and annual leave for the
paid period of leave - Removal of minimum service eligibility periods
- External Coaching through ‘Parents at Work’ to support with the transition to parental leave
- Development of Manager and Employee guides and resources
- Introduction of the Gold Road Parent Community
Return to Work Benefits
- Top up of superannuation for the unpaid period of parental leave*
- Top up of annual leave and long service leave for the unpaid period of parental leave*
- Return to Work Bonus Payment equivalent to 4 weeks salary*
- External Coaching through ‘Parents at Work’ to support with the return to work
While we understand the importance of providing parents with financial support to care for their child, we also acknowledge that the transition to and from parental leave can be quite a daunting process. With this in mind, we were committed to supporting parents through this transition to make it a positive experience for them. We developed a variety of resources such as handbooks, internal communities and introduced an external coaching partner ‘Parents at Work’. These resources were developed for both the employee and managers, to ensure the right level of support is available to them when they need it.
At Gold Road, we want to encourage and support our employees to return to the workforce, while providing flexibility to ensure they can fulfill their parenting responsibilities. We felt return to work benefits had an important place in demonstrating our commitment to helping employees return to their careers after a period of parental leave.
Gold Road are proud of the progress we have made with our parental leave benefit, our next focus is to explore how we can increase flexibility in our workplace to better support our people. Diversity and inclusion is continuously evolving and we will continue to look for opportunities to improve our existing practices and implement new initiatives to further embed Diversity and Inclusion into our culture.
