OC&C equalises paid parental leave across offices globally
Global advisory firm OC&C Strategy Consultants has launched a new package of fully equalised paid parental leave for all employees. The shift will be implemented across all of the firm’s 12 offices worldwide.
“Equalising paid parental leave is one of our many commitments to diversity and inclusion at OC&C,” said Simona Dossena, Diversity & Inclusion leader at OC&C Strategy Consultants.
“Our employee-led global diversity networks, alongside our leadership and people teams, are instrumental in initiating and shaping all our D&I policies, and our parental network has been a particularly important contributor to shaping this policy. We are collectively committed to building the best home for the best strategy talent for all our colleagues.”
Founded in 1987, OC&C is an award-winning consulting firm specialised in strategic advice. The firm supports clients from offices in the UK, US, Brazil, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, China and Australia – and the new parental leave policy will be extended to its staff in every locale.
The move aims to provide OC&C’s employees with “life-enriching benefits”, meaning they no longer need to choose between family life or building a successful careers. Tackling historical imbalances between maternity and paternity leave, the firm believes it will eradicate barriers to gender equality, as well as supporting its workforce during life-defining moments.
This is in keeping with the firm’s historic culture, which according to OC&C’s website, has built “a diverse group of intellectually curious individuals”. While the firm has maintained it is “relentless in pursuit of the right answer”, its site also notes that “we’re surprisingly human”.
Additional support
OC&C is looking to carry this through its parental leave policies, which it notes will promote shared care with equalising paid leave, and introducing flexibility for how that leave is taken.
Now, all parents, regardless of gender, can make decisions based on what best works for them. This is particularly important in OC&C’s French, Polish, Italian and Chinese offices, where the realisation of equalised parental leave is “unrivalled in the industry.”
Will Hayllar, the global managing partner of OC&C explained, “OC&C’s strategy is simple: to be the best home for the best strategy talent… Our work over the last four years to improve our proposition to parents is already showing results, and we are extremely excited about the impact fully equalised leave will have – on parents’ ability to form truly special bonds with their children, on the careers of our parent colleagues and their partners, and on OC&C’s ability to attract and retain the very best talent.”
On top of this, the policy will also apply to non-birth parents, enabling them to take time of for their partner’s birth, and enabling them to return to work when it best suits the individual family. The support will extend beyond leave, too, including ramp-up options that help with a smoother transition back to work, parental coaching, emergency childcare and flexible hours.
Danielle Lestrade, global director of people at OC&C stated, “We live in a time of dual-career households and traditional parental policies are increasingly coming under scrutiny for not reflecting this dynamic. These traditions push birth givers, mothers, or primary adopters to do the lion’s share of early life childcare while the other parent returns to work.”
“In recent years we have seen statutory shared leave become available to staff in many countries, but this often comes with a low pay rate that renders it unviable to many working individuals. We have therefore continued to see an unequal approach to how parents choose to balance childcare and work in the early years.”
