Avanade announces 'family-forming benefits' to support staff and their loved ones

Avanade has announced ‘family-forming benefits’ for employees to support all stages of creating a family. The business is an Australian Cloud, digital and advisory service.

The suite of benefits Avanade is introducing include leave for:

• Fertility treatment: To assist employees who have suffered loss through miscarriage by offering compassionate leave, and support those going through IVF or other reproductive assisted treatments.
• Carer’s support: Used to care for loved ones who may be sick, injured, or in need of assistance due to an emergency.
• Family and domestic violence: To support employees who are experiencing family or domestic violence.
• First Nations support: To allow for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to attend ceremonial events related to bereavement under compassionate leave.

Head of HR at Avanade, Rebel Berenyi commented on the announcement: “As a people-first, purpose-led organisation, we prioritise doing what matters for our people. It’s important to us that we are creating an inclusive and supportive environment where our people can be and do their best.”

She continued: “In this new era of work, there is no one-size-fits-all approach, and flexibility and choice will be crucial to enable our employees to thrive. Through our new and enhanced benefits, it will empower our employees to make a genuine human impact in everything they do, personally and professionally.”

On top of their family-forming benefits, Avanade provide policies to further promote diversity, inclusion, and wellbeing of their staff through:

• Gender transition leave: To assist employees considering or going through gender transition.
• Enhanced parental leave: 18-weeks paid parental leave that can be taken up to two years after the birth or adoption of a child.
• Alternative work week: The choice to work four-day weeks or nine-day fortnights of contracted work.
• ‘My cultural day’: The choice to swap Australian public holidays with days more suited to an employee’s culture or religion.

As reported by Sydney Morning Herald in October 2021, Spotify introduced similar parental leave benefits for its Australian workers.

The article said that employees at Spotify Australia are entitled to a “lifetime allowance to use for IVF, donor services, adoption, fertility preservation or fertility assessments and education. The allowance amounts to several IVF cycles in the relevant country (one cycle in Australia costs $10,000).”

Spotify also offers its workers six-months paid parental leave, which can be staggered up to three years after giving birth or adopting, no matter the employee’s gender.

As covered by Nadine O’Regan for HR Leader, we also saw positive support for parents in this year’s federal budget: “The Paid Parental Leave scheme is also getting a major overhaul and frankly, it is about time, increasing from 20 to 26 weeks to both mothers and fathers and removing eligibility barriers to access for an additional 2,200 families.”

Olivia Holmes discussed the benefits of supporting female parents in the context of the recent federal budget in an article for HR Leader: “Childcare and flexibility are big ticket items when it comes to retaining and attracting female talent. The childcare subsidies and in conjunction with the flexibility we offer our staff will hopefully see less women leaving the [legal] profession – either altogether or out of private practice.”