KPMG has revamped the parental leave and pay provisions for its 11,000 UK employees.
Its maternity provision, previously structured in four tiers based on length of service, has been changed so any employee who has over 26 weeks’ service at the relevant date will receive full pay for the first 18 weeks of maternity leave, followed by 21 weeks at statutory pay.
Sara Turner, UK head of benefits and wellbeing at KPMG, said: “That used to be what we gave staff who had four years or more service, so we scooped everybody up into the highest level.”
KPMG has also updated its paternity provision to reflect new legislation that will allow fathers to take up to 26 weeks’ extra paternity leave from 3 April 2011. It will also break up the regular two weeks of paternity leave to allow fathers to take these at different times.
KPMG previously dealt with adoption, fostering and surrogacy on a case-by-case basis, but has now aligned these policies with its maternity and paternity benefits.
It has also re-communicated all its provisions for parents, as well as informing staff of the changes to childcare voucher tax relief that come into effect on 6 April. Turner said: “We wanted to communicate to parents and expectant parents about these policies and talk about the broader things we do for people. We thought this was a good opportunity to speak about the suite of benefits in My Family Matters.”
Communication was carried out via an initial webinar for the HR community, before being cascaded down to the rest of the business.
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