At the start of 2021 The Glenmorangie Company, which employs 244 people, upgraded its family-leave policy to support all new parents, whether through birth, adoption, surrogacy or any other means, during the first weeks of parenthood and to extend the same rights to paid family leave to all members of staff.
HR director Maria Rooney says: “Our new equal parental leave policy enables employees regardless of gender or sexual orientation to take the same amount of time off. Employees will receive six months' full pay and then a further 15 weeks at 50% pay. We also provide premature birth leave so that our employees don’t miss out on precious time or pay as a result of their early arrival.”
Feedback from staff on the revised policy has been very positive, and four employees have already benefited from the enhanced policy, two of them being a couple. “It also provides development opportunities for people to do short-term assignments to cover the parental leave,” adds Rooney.
In addition to the progressive family leave policy, the employers offers carers’ leave, private medical insurance and a health cash plan that covers routine medical costs such as dental, optical, massage etc. The organisation runs retirement planning workshops, and virtual coffee mornings for parents to come together for a chat, which proved particularly important during the pandemic when parents were home schooling. Webinars also take place throughout the year with themed talks for parents.
A strong family-friendly employee benefits offering can be crucial to retaining valuable talent at all stages of the employee life cycle. “It is so important,” adds Rooney. “We have a diverse workforce and we want to create support during their employee life cycle to ensure that we are there for them when they need us. We put the same effort and energy into our employees as we do our whiskies.”
