It’s a year since shared parental leave (SPL) was introduced.
The idea was that parents could share the allocation of maternity leave between themselves in order to give both the partners the chance to stay at home with their new child – or even to allow partners who would have typically been caring to go to back to work more quickly.
Despite all the publicity about this new policy – and there has been plenty since it came into force last April – the vedict seems to be that take up of SPL has been extremely limited.
Scope for growth
The slow take up of SPL doesn’t mean the policy is a bad one. All you need to do is talk to the younger generation in the workforce who have yet to have children to understand that there expectations around parenting are different.
Many buy into the idea of ‘sharenting’ where men and women take a more equal role childcare, most reject the idea that childcare is just a mother’s job.
This policy is designed for that growing cohort and as more see the how it works in practice, I have no doubt that more people will take the advantage of SPL.
Culture is critical
The low take-up of SPL in the first 12 months provide a timely reminder of some the key areas which drive successful roll out of HR policy and benefits designed to help employees.
The first is that culture is critical in driving uptake of any new initiative. It’s one thing offering shared parental leave but until there is a cultural acceptance in organisations that it is an OK thing to do – for men and for women – many will not take advantage of what is on offer.
Much of this is down to a second important factor which the role of managers and leaders. Their role in communicating, advocating and supporting the benefits and HR policy has an important impact on uptake and employee’s willingness to engage their bosses in a conversation about their plans for the maternity transition or shared childcare.
The third is that the power of traditional benefits like childcare vouchers or policy-led entitlement like shared parental leave are most appealing when they are part of a holistic package of support for employees.
Innovation to stay ahead
A final point to reflect on is the importance of injecting new ideas into the benefits mix, experimenting with them and learning so you can improve them. In the case of shared parental leave there will be a review in 2018 when the government will look at what has worked and what hasn’t. From there it will refine the proposition.
Employers can learn a lot from this approach of adopting new ideas and giving them a chance to succeed.
