Manternity II

In 2016, I came back from 9 months away from work, caring for our kids and supporting my wife's important work. A few months later I wrote about what it was like for me to come back to work after that under the header "Manternity" https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/manternity-matthew-prichard/.

Today, we launched our new whānau@kpmg policy, which brought in 18 weeks at full pay for any of our people becoming a parent, able to be taken flexibly across the first two years after the birth/adoption/whangai/fostering.

For most new mums in our business that is a much more generous financial benefit, and comes with much better coaching support through a new partnership with Grace Papers.

For new dads, it’s really a brand new opportunity to take a break, be a dad, and play a whole different role with your family in those early months.

One of the biggest changes in our policy is that it applies whether you are primary or secondary caregiver, making it gender neutral. The end game here is unapologetically to normalise men taking time to be primary caregiver for their kids.

When we get to that, men win and women win.

Men win, because they stop missing out on the opportunity to spend that time with their kids, and supporting their families in that way. Although men may have done well in a narrow career sense out of the gender stereotype that has seen them generally not interrupt their careers to care for their children - has that really been a win?

Women win, because more men will understand first-hand the challenges of being the primary carer for young children, and will be better workmates, peers, fathers, bosses and husbands because of it.

Until we take gender out of our policies, we’re perpetuating gender role stereotypes that are bad for all genders.

From today's feedback from our people - they get it. I've had feedback from both women and men, parents and non-parents saying we've gotten this right. Many of those messages are from our 20-somethings saying "I don't have any kids myself, but...". Hopefully we've opened up a new option where they can see themselves having a longer, more sustainable and balanced career in the hugely rewarding environment of professional services.

It's been a good day.