nib New Zealand has updated its suite of benefits to better support the health and wellbeing of its more than 200 employees across Aotearoa.
The broad range of employees’ entitlements include paid parental leave, paid grandparents’ leave, paid gender affirmation leave, natural disaster leave, paid cultural leave, flexible public holidays, and ability to purchase additional annual leave. The company also increased the number of paid family and domestic violence leave days. These benefits came into effect on July 1.
nib New Zealand CEO Rob Hennin (pictured above) said the benefits demonstrate the company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
“Last year, we made a series of commitments through our diversity and inclusion action plan that aim to support the diverse needs of our employees,” Hennin said. “These new benefits mean we’re making good on our commitments while ensuring our people have the flexibility to balance their work and personal needs.”
One of the introduced benefits is 100% paid parental leave for up to 18 weeks for all parents, in addition to the statutory payment, regardless of whether they are a primary or secondary carer, in the first two years of the child’s life.
“Our offering of paid parental leave regardless of carer status is quite unique for workplaces in New Zealand and provides greater opportunity for all parents to share family responsibilities,” Hennin said. “It also helps address the employment, income and career progression gaps that we know wahine across the country are still experiencing when caring for a child or family.”
The insurer also introduced five days of cultural leave, intended to support its Māori employees taking time away to practice their traditional rituals and customs and partake in dates of significance.
“We have introduced five days paid leave to enable our Māori employees to participate in Koroneihana and Poukai or fulfil their cultural obligations,” Hennin said. “We understand these practices are important to Māori culture, tradition and identity and we want our employees to feel supported to take part in these days of significance with their whanau.”
According to nib, the benefits complement its hybrid working model that was introduced last year. This model includes a $1,040 annual work allowance to support remote working, and the opportunity to work outside the office for the majority of the time.
“Life at nib means our people have the flexibility to choose when, where and how they work and it’s important our policies, practices and benefits support this,” Hennin said. “In fact, 84% of our employees across the nib Group say they now have the flexibility in their work schedule to be able to better balance their work and personal needs. Our benefits also help position us as a market leader when it comes to our employees. We aim to be an employer of choice for both our existing and future employees.”
