QBE’s Share the Care scheme has delivered a 300% uplift in male employees taking paid parental leave, a year after the ASX-listed giant became the first insurer to adopt the gender-equal, flexible paid parental leave scheme.
QBE said men now represent more than a quarter (27%) of parents in the organisation accessing paid parental leave – a stark increase from the 10% of male QBE parents accessing parental leave from the 12-month period prior to the launch of the scheme. Australia-wide, less than 5% of men across the country elect to take primary-carers leave.
Vivek Bhatia, CEO of QBE Australia Pacific, said the first-year results affirm that gender-equal policies, like Share the Care, help address gender-equality within corporate Australia, and in the home.
“I’m delighted to see that our gender-equal parenting policy has delivered the results we hoped to see, in particular the impact for our male employees who now have the flexibility to access leave in a way that meets their unique needs and enable them to play an important role in the wellbeing of working families,” Bhatia said. “When you look at our workforce as a whole, the fact that over a quarter of those now accessing paid parental leave are men is a truly encouraging figure. We’ve taken the step to normalise caring and flexibility for all families and sent a strong and overdue message that we can only achieve gender equality in the workplace when both men and women have equal opportunities to thrive in their career, and at home.”
