Maternity leave and Childcare: Aventis makes it work

By CPD News

Aventis introduced a new parental leave policy for its 500 Australian employees in March. Part of the deal is an allowance for childcare expenses

Primary caregivers can claim up to $1000.00 per month for 6 months to help with childcare for very young babies.

The policy provides eight weeks fully paid parental leave for the primary caregiver and one weeks leave on full pay for the secondary carer without loss of other leave benefits. Interestingly, some of the initiatives came from a "brainstorming" session with team leaders and HR staff. The company charged a Work/Life Balance taskforce with benchmarking family friendly policies with other major pharmaceutical companies.

(Workplace Intelligence; April 2003. Thomson CPD)