Brainpower. Sylvia Ann Hewlett
current legislation and business issues as well as their own underlying assumptions about women’s experiences. Later, they participate in a post-leave session on how to reintegrate their returning employees.
In addition to providing support for mothers and their managers, Maternity Matters also provides support for new dads. Citi runs a regular two-hour workshop which encourages new and expectant dads to be successful in both their roles at work and their new roles of being dads—how to set boundaries and communicate them effectively. “We talk to them about their values and how this stacks up with competing priorities and how they might find a way to be at home to read a bedtime story to their kids a few nights a week,” Minashi says.
The workshops for managers, mothers, and fathers run quarterly. In addition, participants receive communication from HR in the form of regular newsletters and handouts.
Maternity Matters earned Citi a 2009 Innovation Award, and the program has translated into direct cost savings for Citi. The company experienced a 15% improved maternity leave retention rate from 2005 to 2008, up to 97%. Returnees also have expressed greater traction on returning to work, improved confidence, and a smoother transition both in and out of the workplace since the program was instituted.
On the heels of the success of the U.K. program, Maternity Matters was adapted for the United States, where it was piloted in July 2009 with employees in the NYC metropolitan area. The U.S. program is currently in the midst of a broader rollout to make it available to all employees and is experimenting with webinars. Minashi is also spearheading efforts to export the program to 53 EMEA countries.
Citi Hungary: Maternity Leave Coordinator
In Hungary, mothers can stay at home until their children are three-years-old. (If they give birth again within three years, they can stay at home until the youngest child is three-years-old.) As long as they have been employed for at least 180 days, they are entitled to maternity allowances from Hungarian Social Security. Employers cannot terminate their employment during this time, and they must rehire mothers in their original position, if possible, whenever they wish to return. Fathers and even grandmothers can also take advantage of these policies.
But these generous policies, while excellent for parents, create challenges for the corporations that employ them. In the fall of 2009 alone, 13% of Citi Hungary’s active employees were on maternity leave.
In 2001, Citi Hungary introduced a maternity leave program to ensure that mothers can return to fulfilling work. Central to this program is the belief that, as Citi Hungary HR generalist Guyri Pásztor says, “Being a mother should have minimal, if any, effects on women’s careers at Citi.”
At the center of the program is a Maternity Coordinator, a member of the HR department whose job it is to keep in touch with all of the women on leave (called maternees). After reporting their pregnancies to HR, women at Citi are sent an email with detailed information about Hungary’s maternity system and allowances. The maternity coordinator maintains a database with information including expected delivery dates, contact information, current salaries and grades, and current department and functional heads. Later, the actual delivery date and the end date of the maternity allowance are put into the database as well. The coordinator regularly emails maternees information about the business, networking opportunities, and open positions. Employees who are out on leave also receive a semi-annual family newsletter with information geared toward their concerns.
When a maternee is ready to return to work, she contacts the coordinator, who then liaises with an HR generalist in order to find her a new position and coordinate the returning process. The coordinator works closely with HR and Citi leadership, submitting regular reports on the numbers of pregnant staff, maternees, and returnees.
The recession has created unique challenges to the program. Citi Hungary had to scale back their staff and ask several eligible maternees to remain at home. Still, the program has had a significant effect on maternee retention. Twenty-one employees at Citi Hungary returned from leave in 2009—almost half of those eligible to return—and the program has numerous success stories. One high-potential employee at Citi had four children and stayed home for 12 years, but returned as high-potential at the end of her leave. Since her return, she has been promoted twice. “It’s really become a part of the culture here,” Pásztor says of the program.
In 2008, Citi Hungary won the Best Workplace for Women award for their maternity program. Today Citi is fostering several initiatives focusing on maternity/adoption leave in several other geographies, including the U.S. and the U.K., and they are investigating the possibility of adapting Citi Hungary’s program more broadly.
Deutsche Bank: Familienservice
As a company which takes great pride in providing its employees with a balanced career and family life, Deutsche Bank recognizes that a new generation of men and women expects greater flexibility and help in integrating life challenges with work obligations.
“We are a company that is committed to providing our employees with family-friendly measures,” says Aletta von Hardenberg, diversity manager at Deutsche Bank in Germany. Recognizing that a significant percentage of its German workforce must juggle childcare and eldercare, she adds, “To the extent possible, we try to develop policies which reflect that commitment to our more than 30,000 employees in Germany alone.”
One best practice out of the toolbox: childcare facilities vary immensely around the country depending on various conditions such as local public services and employees’ demands and needs. In Frankfurt, for example, demand is high and employees have access to a number of Deutsche Bank-sponsored crèche and kindergarten which provide bilingual or multilingual childcare and long opening hours. In addition to regular childcare there is frequent demand for further services such as emergency childcare, nannies, babysitters, and care during school holidays, forcing the company to think creatively about strategies for its stressed-out employees. Eldercare is equally complicated.
Therefore Deutsche Bank has contracted with a private company to provide its employees with desperately needed childcare, crèche, and emergency childcare services and eldercare options. Familienservice, or Family Service, is a comprehensive, nationwide resource for parents and those with elderly relatives in need of care. In addition to providing on-site care, the service is also a vital referral resource that gives employees guidance on making their own arrangements, to help streamline a task which can be both stressful and time-consuming.
Von Hardenberg has a personal reason to be grateful to Familienservice. Her elderly mother doesn’t live in the same city, and von Hardenberg worries that she isn’t able to cook for herself. Thanks to Familienservice, von Hardenberg obtained the services of a “dinner on wheels” service which delivers daily meals to her mother’s home.
Deutsche Bank absorbs all costs associated with the referral service making it a free benefit to their employees: employees can access the service as often as needed, free of charge, and manage only those costs associated with caregiver arrangements which they ultimately choose.
The security von Hardenberg feels in having provided some level of care for her mother is widely echoed in employee feedback. Employees have recorded success in finding highly reputable nursing homes and paid care resources for their elders. The overwhelmingly positive response to the referral program also underscores increasing demand for eldercare service as the German population ages.
By recognizing and anticipating this demand, Deutsche Bank sends an unmistakable signal to its employees and competitors that familial concerns need not be compromised for productivity and vice versa. Recognizing the value in providing employees with work-life balance, the services help erode much of the stigma associated with bringing family concerns into work and strengthens Deutsche Bank’s determination to prove that successful career-family balance can be a model for a productive, fulfilling experience with the bank.
Goldman Sachs: U.K. “Great Expectations”
Maternity Strategy
Across the investment banking industry, women occupy a significant proportion of the talent pool at entry level but their career progression slows as they move to senior leadership roles. One key risk point is maternity leave: too many