KPMG

KPMG is a global network of professional firms providing audit, tax and advisory services. Each KPMG firm is a legally distinct and separate entity and sets its own parental leave policy.

KPMG New Zealand is locally owned and has over 1,500 employees across seven offices around the country.

This interview was conducted with Evan Bateup, Chief People Officer. You can view the relevant press release here.

What prompted KPMG to review its policy? 

We wanted to create an offering that:

• Takes into consideration that ‘family’ needs are different for everyone

• Better supports wellbeing

• Encourages equality in parental leave

• Reflects the future of work

• Is competitive

And specifically, we wanted to change the experience of parents in our organisation to help increase the talent pool who stay with us through to the most senior levels.

What process did you go through internally to formulate your policy? How did you get employee feedback?

We engaged deeply with our people throughout this process, prioritising understanding the experiences of our employees to confirm assumptions rather than relying solely on market data. To do this, we conducted a firmwide ‘Gender Equality and Career Progression Survey’ followed by a national ‘Listening Tour’.

We worked to understand the real, lived experiences of our people and which aspects of a new offering would make the biggest difference to them and their whānau. This meant engaging with stakeholders across the business, including parents (current, expectant and pre-family), HR Business Partners, People Leaders, Senior Leaders and Executive Committee, internal Inclusion Diversity and Equity Networks (Gender Equity and Pride), Communications, Payroll & Finance.  

KPMG’s policy is financially generous – how did you get this over the line with management/the board? What did you include in making the business case for employer-paid parental leave?

We looked at how the Whanau@KPMG policy aligned with our purpose and what it would deliver to the firm.  This was discussed at length amongst the executive team.  The biggest challenge we faced was the proposal to offer primary and secondary caregivers the same benefits, which effectively doubles the cost to our business, and means that men are now taking the same length of leave, with the same other benefits as women. That was difficult to get a consensus on.  “Why are we responsible for social engineering?”, “Shouldn’t we focus on being generous to women?”, “We can’t afford to be this generous”. 

In the end, our CEO believed that this feature of our policy was critical to changing the experience of both men and women at our senior levels.  Not only would more men have the huge benefit of being full-time caregivers for their children in their early years, but those men would then be better colleagues, better bosses, and more empathetic to the women going through the same challenges of having that career break and reintegrating into the workplace.  We’re really seeing the benefit of that change in the diversity of our senior levels.

KPMG offers support to help employees transition before and after parental leave, such as coaching. How did you decide what to offer outside of paid parental leave?

The feedback we received from our people was that the support needed to go beyond the leave offering. People leaders and managers also play a vital role in supporting parents at all stages of the parental process.

We decided to partner with Grace Papers because they are workplace gender equality experts. They operate off an empowerment model which aligned with the support that our people were asking for. Their offering goes beyond one-on-one coaching for parental leavers and ensures that leaders are equipped with the knowledge and skills to support their people.

What did you need to consider when rolling out a new policy?

Once the policy was finalised, briefings were held for team members who required a detailed understanding of the policy, including Human Resources Business Partners, People Leaders, and Payroll and Finance teams. A range of launch events was held, and all of our internal communications channels (including intranet, online bulletin board, screensavers and firm-wide emails) were utilised to spread the word on the new benefits and explain how to access the policy information and who to contact for further information.

One of the hardest aspects of the roll-out was deciding on an effective date.  We considered a very generous retrospective application to both primary and secondary caregivers.  In the end, we applied the policy for up to 3 months retrospectively for primary caregivers only.  No matter what date you choose, some parents are going to miss out on the new generosity of a better policy.  And those people who missed out were likely to be new parents, under stress, so it had to be handled sensitively.

What has the feedback been like?

We’ve had really positive feedback from parents around the generosity of the policy and its value to their whānau.

“18 weeks of parental leave made a huge difference for me and my family. Not only do I feel connected with my newborn but I’m also feeling recharged when I return to work.” ~ KPMG Parent

As well as receiving extremely positive feedback from parents, a 2022 internal survey revealed that the whānau policy offering was one of the most meaningful benefits across all staff who responded.

Our partnership with Grace Papers has also been extremely positive for the overall parental leave experience at KPMG.

“I found that my one-on-one sessions really helped me to explore various concerns I had relating to my return to work and to workshop constructive solutions and practical strategies. The opportunity to discuss these issues with someone outside the office, in a frank and open manner, was incredibly useful. I really enjoyed, and benefited from, our sessions.” ~ KPMG Parent

We’ve been very pleased with the policy’s reception and uptake however we recognise that there are still improvements to be made on both the process and communications to ensure consistency and clarity of expectations.

“We recognise that we, as an organisation, we won’t always get things right, and this is part of our journey. We listen to our people, and we evolve where we can. We’re heading in the right direction, but we know there’s more to do, so our journey continues.” ~ Matt Prichard, Executive Chairman for KPMG New Zealand

What advice do you have for employees within an organisation who want to champion parental leave?

 Having been through a six-month process of engagement to develop and implement this new policy, we have several learnings to share.

Firstly, it’s important to consider what will be included in the project scope. This kind of review has the potential to be huge, so it’s helpful to be clear from the start on what is realistically able to be done within resource constraints and timeframes. That will enable a line to be drawn in the sand around the implementation date.

Secondly, we broke the review up into 2 phases:

• Phase 1 – Focus on parents and particularly opportunities around parental leave

• Phase 2 – Consider broader ‘family’ needs to explore how we could be more inclusive and supportive of everyone’s needs

Thirdly, we found a key challenge was deciding on the retrospective application of the policy. This required clear and honest communication with our people. We found it helpful to consider the following:

• What date will the policy apply from?

• Will people currently on parental leave, or who have just returned, be offered anything?

• Who will be eligible for the new offering?

Our highly collaborative approach to designing and delivering Whānau@KPMG has meant we have created an inclusive offering that provides much-appreciated support at a critical time in our people’s lives.

Thank you very much, Evan! And to view KPMG’s profile, please visit the register.