Financial services organisation Societe Generale has enhanced its maternity and parental leave provision for 271 staff based in Singapore.
The parental benefits, effective from 1 March 2019, have been designed to increase the support available to female employees when it comes to juggling work and home lives, as well as to assist the advancement of their careers.
Societe Generale Singapore has increased its maternity leave benefit from 16 weeks to 20 weeks, and its paternity and partner leave from 10 working days to 15 working days; this is also now applicable for mothers in same-sex relationships who do not claim maternity leave.
The organisation has also amended its adoption and child surrogacy leave. This requires employees to self-declare as either the primary or secondary caregiver. The primary caregiver is entitled to the organisation’s maternity leave provision, and the secondary caregiver can take the available paternity and partner leave.
For employees taking leave for adoption purposes, the qualifying age of the adopted child has increased from 12 months to three years.
Mukta Arya, head of HR, South East Asia and head of people and talent development, Asia Pacific at Societe Generale, said: “Our people are our most important assets and women are key contributors to our business. In our Singapore operations, women comprise nearly 50% of our workforce and they make up over 40% of the bank’s managerial roles, with 67% of women identified for talent development programmes. We recognise the dual roles many of our female employees play and we want them to succeed both at work and at home.
“As such, we want to better support and advance women’s careers by creating a culture that provides equal opportunity to all parents, regardless of gender and life goals. In addition to our enhanced parental and family care leave, the bank also offers a range of flexible working arrangements, including [home working] for relevant departments, to allow all our employees in Singapore to work in a way that better suits their lifestyles.”