#DaddyDayCare

As part of the leadership team at a FinTech Startup, it was with trepidation that I sat down in my weekly 1:1 with my boss (the CEO) and explained that for a number of reasons my wife is returning to work and as our daycare didn't start until January (why there is only a yearly intake is beyond me), we made a conscious decision that I would be the Primary Carer for our 9 1/2-month-old son and ask to drop down to a few days a week.

His response; "Are you sure that's enough? Don't you want to take more time?"

And breathe.

When we found out we were expecting, I of course immediately checked what our policy was for Parental Leave. As a startup we'd only recently put one in place because to be honest, one of our staff members fell pregnant and until that time, we'd not needed one. Our Head of People & Culture at the time worked hard to ensure that we had a highly flexible and unbiased policy, seeing trends in the market to offer Parental Leave to either parent if they were the primary carer within the first year.

Once I'd agreed on a suitable arrangement with my company, I spent the next few months going through the practicalities of working part-time and setting myself up so that I could ensure I was focussed on looking after my son without having to keep an eye on emails and Slack. Setting expectations here were critical. Ensuring the team understood what they were accountable for and of course what constitutes an "emergency".

On the outside, I started to talk to people about taking leave and found the general theme was surprise. Surprise that I was a) able to agree that with work and b) willing to take extended time off as a carer .

It appeared to be much more uncommon than I'd first thought.

My wife then suggested it might be a good idea to write a LinkedIn post about going on Parental Leave given how rare it appears to be. Apart from being a great idea (top tip: all ideas your wife has are great!), it got me intrigued. I asked Google "How common is it for men to go on Parental Leave in Australia?", the statistics were shocking:

• Only 1 in 20 men go on a form of Parental Leave.
• Of that, 85% of the fathers and partners surveyed took less than four weeks leave.

The saddest statistic was that "three in four dads would have liked to take additional leave".

This begs the question why aren't they? Talking to a few Dads, Parental Leave ranged from ad-hoc arrangements, to a standard two weeks paid (at minimum wage) or no paid leave at all. A bit of research into legislation in Australia quickly identified that "Australia does not have a nationally legislated 'shared parental leave' approach..........and most organisations provide limited parental leave allowance for secondary carers, if any at all."

This is obviously something that needs attention. Is it gender bias? Do we really still hold the view that men are the ‘breadwinners’ and women are the ‘nurturers’? Is there really a stigma around looking after our children as men instead of going to work? It's 2019 people.

Or is the pay gap a barrier to us truly embracing shared parental leave? Far too many questions to answer here.

With anything, there are many causes, but I encourage you to challenge the norm, and fight for a fair and unbiased policy. Statistics demonstrate that providing a shared parental leave policy has a limited to no impact on costs, and drives greater morale and impact on the business long term. Let alone it being a reason to attract talent, particularly as new generations enter the market with different expectations. If you don't provide your employees flexibility, they will go elsewhere because someone out there is already providing it.

Change isn't always driven by the big corporations, yes there are some fantastic and progressive large global companies but there are also some that are far behind. In startup land, we have an opportunity to test and learn. We can choose how we approach flexibility in the workforce and even engage the entire team in the implementation of policies and procedures. But as a business we must also be prepared for what's coming, the next generation of the workforce are starting to knock on our doors. Forget Gen Y (Millennials), Gen Z are here and they've never used a pencil or a landline, and they don't want to work in an office anymore.

For me, writing this after my first week where I've spent three days with my son and two in the office, I can confirm it's challenging. On one hand, I feel exhausted, on another, I already feel a greater connection with my son and a greater appreciation for the incredible (and challenging) job that my wife has done raising our son over the previous nine months.

At work, I noticed immediately on the first day that I was refreshed, re-motivated and energised. Knowing that I have limited time in the office has forced a laser focus on only the truly important things and demonstrated to me that I was likely wasting a lot of time on things that would've worked themselves out on their own otherwise. I've also noticed that now only things that really need my attention are raised by the team, and everything else is just an FYI, a model I've been a proponent of since I joined, with my mantra of JFDI (Just f***ing decide it) being drummed in whenever I can!

A short week isn't sustainable for me long term, but I think the lessons I, and the team around me, will learn about how we work together in the future will be invaluable.

I realise I'm privileged to have the opportunity to take on this life challenge and I'm proud I have. I’m sure there are many parents out there that won’t or can't take the time out for various reasons, and I appreciate it's tough out there, but right now, I can tell you, if you can, you should.

Let's see how I feel after week two........

Source: https://aifs.gov.au/aifs-conference/fathers-and-parental-leave