Cardno is committed to being a family friendly employer because we care about our people – and people are at the core of our business. Building and maintaining a workplace based on inclusion, equity, respect, trust and integrity is fundamental to our inclusive culture. Whether you’re a parent, a child, a sibling or a parent of a fur-baby, we know that creating an environment at Cardno where family members can thrive is key to enabling all employees to combine work and family responsibilities – however those responsibilities might look different for each person.
Becoming a family friendly accredited workplace means we are proactively reducing the tension that exists between work and family by embedding and promoting policies and practices that genuinely support employees to thrive at work and at home.
‘Shared Care’ provides greater choice for families considering child care options for their child in the first year, where at least one partner works for Cardno.
The initiative provides financial incentive for the secondary carer to step up into the primary carer role. The initiative sees secondary carers being able to take paid leave of absence to stay at home and care for their child in their first year, allowing the mother (or primary carer) to return to work.
Why is Cardno doing this? The Shared Care initiative is, in part, inspired by Elizabeth Broderick AO, (former Sex Discrimination Commissioner) who stated in 2015 “If I could choose one thing to change, it would be for caring responsibilities to be shared equally between men and women”.
It’s aimed at redressing an existing inequality and in providing this choice going some way to equalising caring responsibilities and their impacts.
“Shared Care” is inclusive of all families including same sex couples and single parents and is available to both parents and adoptive parents.
Shared Care is in place to support primary carers to return to their workplace and give families options. It does this by:
• Providing paid parental leave for Cardno partners of primary carers to take over full time or part time care of a child who is less than one year of age
• By offering paid parental leave to both parents if both are employed by Cardno
Shared Care is available when a secondary carer is taking over primary caring responsibilities. It can be taken as full-time leave or as a combination of work days and primary carer leave days across the working week. This is ideal when the partner of a Cardno employee is returning to work on a part time basis.
From the 2019 to the 2020 financial year, Cardno reported an increase of 15% (from 19% to 34%) in the proportion of men accessing shared parental leave. That is, in the 2020 financial year, 34% of parents accessing full paid primary carer leave were men.
We are receiving fabulous feedback from our working dads and secondary carers who are embracing the chance to be primary carer. In particular, they are commenting that they can play a greater role in parenting their babies and supporting their partners to return to work.
Andy Johnston, Senior Principal – Transport Advisory, RPEQ & Technical Director at Cardno says “I can’t advocate for it enough. There’s nothing better than being able to give my wee girl 100% of my attention for the next 16 weeks”.
Cardno APAC offers great parental and shared care leave options so they can spend quality time with their little ones in the knowledge that their career will be there for them to pick it up right where they left off.
We see many benefits from being a family inclusive employer, for example:
• It enhances our employee value proposition – we care about our people and people are at the core of our business. Building and maintaining a workplace based on inclusion, equity, respect, trust and integrity is fundamental to our inclusive culture.
• Helps us to attract and retain talent – we know our employees are looking for family friendly work cultures more than ever in this COVID environment. Being flexible and supportive of our employees ’family situations is one way we can retain our talented workforce and attract others to Cardno.
• Enhances our employee wellbeing, productivity and engagement by reducing work life tension
Keeping abreast of best practice in family friendly workplace standards helps us be a part of improving gender equality. For example, with regard to Parental Leave, equal parental leave and greater support for working parents benefits all working mums and dads, enables greater employee engagement and a stronger economy.
Since enhancing our parental leave policies, we have witnessed firsthand the many positive outcomes, most notably for fathers. Aussie Dads (currently) take less than 20% of the parental leave dads take globally. Outdated parental leave schemes perpetuate the entrenched male breadwinner model, impeding women’s career opportunities and placing undue financial pressure on dads. Since Cardno has created our Shared Care Policy we’ve had heart-warming images and testimonials from our dads while out on extended parental leave.
If you were an engineer with a new baby you used to have a choice, you could put your career on hold or see less of your child. Two Cardno dads open up about what it’s like to have more options.
Adrian’s Story
“Seeing my son grow up has been quite incredible – just how quickly he changes and catches on to things,” says Adrian Kho, a team leader for Geosciences with Cardno in Brisbane.
Adrian took three months away from work to take Shared Care and treasured seeing moments he would have missed had he been working full-time.
“We were playing puzzles and he kept trying to put the piece into the hole and he couldn’t do it. But then one day he wakes up and suddenly he does it. It’s a really beautiful moment,” he says.
Cardno created Shared Care leave so employees have more options when it comes to managing parental responsibilities and to help equalise the impacts felt by parents. Adrian’s experience is a testament to this.
Adrian’s wife, who is also an engineer, does not have the same parental leave benefits. Also, their son’s grandparents have not been able to provide support due to COVID-19 border closures. Despite these obstacles, and thanks in part to Shared Care leave, both of them have been able to do more to support each other and their child.
“It gave my family avenues. If we didn’t have this, I probably would have continued working full-time, or close to it, and she’d have to do full-time care until the baby was old enough to be put into childcare,” says Adrian.
Shared Care leave is available to all Cardno employees, including same-sex couples, adoptive parents and single parents and they offer more time with increasing tenure. Permanent employees who’ve been with the company more than five years can take up to 20 weeks of fully paid leave – a number that’s far above average for the country, let alone the industry.
“We’ve made a deliberate decision to create a more inclusive, flexible and family-friendly workplace at Cardno,” says Cardno Asia Pacific CEO Jamie Alonso. “I wish this leave was on offer when my daughter Gabi was a baby.”
Trevor’s Story
Trevor Chiang is an Engineer in the Asset Strategies team at Cardno. His first child was born ten months ago and he recently completed his 16 weeks of Shared Care leave. He definitely valued being able to spend so much quality time with his son.
When Trevor and Adrian talk about their sons, they describe the trials and small wonders of fatherhood. But their ability to be there for their children’s development is not common.
Even today, statistics show women reduce their work hours to take on the lion’s share of childcare while men mostly maintain the same level of work they had before having children.
Trevor’s wife is a scientific research assistant, where her employment is based on fixed term contracts and is highly dependent on available funding and grants. She loves her work, but if you take extended time off it can be hard to get back into the industry.
Trevor is grateful for Shared Care leave because it allowed his wife to return to work full-time, gave him more time with his son, and didn’t hinder his own advancement.
The ability for both parents to maintain career momentum after having a child would not have been possible even a few years back, let alone a generation ago.
Trevor shares, “I’m so grateful to Cardno for offering this initiative and allowing me to continue flexible working arrangements. It means a lot.”
“We’re proud of the work we’ve done this past year, making deliberate decisions to create a more inclusive and family friendly work environment. We’ve encouraged dads to access our new shared care parental leave program and have seen a significant increase in their numbers. We’ve reviewed our flexible work policy in light of workplace changes brought about by COVID-19. Our ideas and actions are informed by our inclusion and diversity working groups, comprised of committed men and women from across the business. There is more to do at Cardno but we’re making significant progress. I’m really excited to sustain the momentum. Creating a culture of Inclusion is key to our success.”
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