7 March 2023
Custom Fleet announces gender-neutral parental leave
At Custom Fleet, it’s people first, always. We are committed to creating a fair, equal and diverse workplace for all our crew.
As part of our important work to become an Employer of Choice for Gender Equality and achieve Australian Workplace Equality Agency (AWEI) Certification for LGBTQI+ inclusion, we recently reviewed our Parental Leave policy.
It became clear we could do better for our people, and deliver over and above the minimum expectations set out by the Women’s Gender Equality Agency and AWEI.
We wanted to create a policy that supports all our crew and reflects the needs of modern families. A policy that extends to all aspiring parents whether that be through surrogacy, adoption, pregnancy, foster care, and/or kinship/family care.
For us to take a step towards equality, we had to stop perpetuating the gendered stereotypes of the past and recognise that there is no such thing as a secondary carer when you become a parent.
We also want to ensure that employees were supported at different stages in their journey to become a parent, knowing that the path for each individual and family is a unique one.
Our newly launched policy provides:
- Twelve (12) weeks of Paid Parental Leave for all parents – that’s right, no more primary and secondary carers leave
- Availability of this leave to all parents, including LGBTQI+ families
- Superannuation paid at full pay for 18 weeks and then paid at minimum wage for a further 18 weeks
- Five (5) days paid Fertility Support Leave to attend or support your partner through fertility related medical appointments and procedures
- Five (5) days of paid Pre-Natal Leave to attend or support your partner with pregnancy related medical appointments or surrogacy, adoption, foster care meetings
- Four (4) weeks bereavement leave in the unfortunate event of miscarriage
- Twelve (12) weeks paid leave and forty (40) weeks unpaid leave in the unfortunate event of stillbirth
And did we mention no waiting periods!?! All this support is available from your first day with us.
Custom Fleet are proud of this inclusive gender-neutral policy and hope it will:
- Improve family work-life balance
- Increase women’s workforce participation
- Normalise shared childcare between women and men
- Reduce any stigma which may exist around balancing of work and care
- Allow men to participate in their children’s lives more fully
- Open the doors to more parents as it provides for modern family constructs of all types
We also hope this will pave the way for other organisations to consider similar inclusive and equitable adjustments to their own policies and practices.
Our new Parental Leave Policy was made possible through the collaborative effort of our Women in Fleet stream – part of Intersection (our Diversity Network), and our People, Performance and Culture team.
We have several workstreams as part of Intersection, full of passionate people who work hard behind the scenes to create positive and impactful change for our people and our business.
For more information on Intersection, please refer to the Diversity, Inclusion, & Belonging section of our website.