Sling & Stone introduces new parental leave and pregnancy loss policies
Recently acquired communications agency Sling & Stone has introduced a new paid parental policy for both primary and secondary carers across each of its Australian, New Zealand and United States offices.
The policy affords ‘Slingers’ up to 12 weeks at full pay, which covers all instances of new parenthood, including newborn, surrogacy, IVF, adoption or fostering.
The leave can also be taken when it best suits the individual, either together, at a later date or split. In order to get the full 12 weeks, employees must have been at Sling & Stone for three years or more.
3 years? Isn’t the usual tenure to qualify for parental leave in most companies one year? Such a long tenure requirement is certainly not inclusive and discourages people, particularly women, from applying for new jobs if they want to have a family. Say you’re a woman in your 30s or 40s yet to have a child but want one, waiting three years could be the difference between getting pregnant and not. So a seemingly generous policy isn’t so generous really and actually discriminatory. Not sure how they can be patting themselves on the back for this.