It also made changes to other benefits
Westpac New Zealand (Westpac) has given all 4,500+ employees five days of Wellbeing Leave annually to help them look after themselves and their families.
Marc Figgins, general manager of human resources and communications at Westpac NZ, said the benefit resulted from employee feedback about improving their work/life balance and a talk with First Union.
“The last 18 months have been hugely challenging for our employees. They've adjusted to life in a pandemic while also helping customers through the financial stress and uncertainty caused by COVID-19,” Figgins said.
“As a society, we're now much more aware of the importance of wellbeing, and we place a higher premium on being mentally and physically well.
“By offering this leave, we're giving our people more opportunity to balance work time and family time, without having to choose between the two. We know that is important to them, and we also believe a healthier workforce is good for business.”
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Westpac has introduced the Wellbeing Leave alongside increased entitlements to parental leave (up to four weeks of paid partners leave for new parents who are not a primary caregiver) and extension of bereavement leave.
In May, the bank commissioned research into the social and economic benefits of men and women sharing domestic responsibilities and paid work more equally.
Named Sharing the Load, the report found that men and women wanted to change the split within couples of paid work and things like caring responsibilities.
“By enhancing these leave entitlements, we're making it easier for families to share their domestic and work commitments more evenly, and for men, in many cases, to be more involved in parenting from an early stage,” Figgins said.
“We know we have more work to do in this area, so we'll keep talking to our people about how we can continue to help them balance their work and life commitments more effectively.”
Westpac will also give an extra day of COVID-19 leave to use before the end of 2021 to recognise its people's extra effort in supporting customers during the latest lockdown.
