A family-friendly workplace

Recently the Kering Group announced our new Global Parental Policy. The framework provides Group-wide standards in terms of maternity, paternity and adoption leave for more than 38,500 employees in nearly 60 countries around the world. The new policy holds a single and clear purpose: to build a supportive and inclusive working environment for all our employees around the globe. With this crucial step, we continue our efforts in fostering a Kering culture based on ethics, diversity and sustainability.

Focusing on well-being at work for all

Effective 1 January 2017, every employee who has been employed at the Group for at least 12 months will be entitled to 14 weeks full pay maternity and adoption leave and five days full pay paternity/adoption or partner leave. In countries and territories where local legislation provides higher levels of parental level benefits, the local policy will be applied.

In Hong Kong, our hope is that the new Global Parental Policy will provide our over 1,600 employees here a more sustainable, caring and family-friendly environment, by entitling them to benefits and compensation that are more aligned with international standards.

Responding to local community

Over the past few years, we have been in talks and in partnership with various NGOs and women organisations like The Women’s Foundation and HER Fund, to better understand the challenges that Hong Kong women face, hear their many motivating and powerful stories, drive empowerment of women in the region and raise awareness of violence against women. We are actively involved in pursuing such efforts.

Repeated pleas have been made for Hong Kong’s maternity leave legislation to meet the 14-week standard of maternity leave suggested by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). According to ILO, 14 weeks is the length of maternity leave in the majority of countries today (98 countries—representing 53% of the countries studied by ILO), and only 15% of these countries and regions provide less than 12 weeks of maternity leave. Unfortunately, Hong Kong is currently among them.

Su-Mei Thompson, Chief Executive Officer of The Women’s Foundation (TWF), a leading non-profit organisation which has been lobbying for enhanced statutory parental leave benefits in Hong Kong, commented, “Statutory maternity leave entitlement in Hong Kong is capped at 10 weeks which lags behind the ILO’s prescribed minimum of 14 weeks based on considerations of maternal health and infant well-being.  Meanwhile, statutory paternity leave in Hong Kong is only 3 days. TWF has long advocated for the government to review these policies and pending this review, for businesses in Hong Kong to voluntarily move to embrace global best practice.  Kering's new global parental policy powerfully demonstrates that more progressive employers are recognising that giving working mothers and fathers more time to care for their newborn children may mean more time out of the office in the short-term but overall has a very positive impact on morale and productivity. We hope more businesses in Hong Kong will follow Kering's lead in this regard."

In terms of maternity leave compensation, ILO’s report states that 74 of the 167 countries studied provide cash benefits of at least two-thirds of earnings for a minimum of 14 weeks. 61 countries, 37%, even go beyond this standard by providing full pay maternity leave for at least 14 weeks. In Asia, about a quarter of the 26 countries and economies meet this international standard, with the average duration standing at 12.7 weeks. This establishes a need for Hong Kong to meet the international standard.

Promoting equality of parents

Carlo Imò, Head of Kering Asia Pacific, Kering Group

One of the key elements of our new Global Parental Policy is that it applies to all parents within the Group, ensuring we provide adequate protection for new parents, both women and men. For example, there are currently no accepted standards or international legislative guidelines regarding paternity leave. However, we are aware that a resolution concerning gender equality at the heart of decent work was adopted at the 98^th session of the International Labour Conference in 2009. This resolution calls for governments, together with social partners, to develop ‘adequate policies for a better balance of work and family responsibilities, to include paternity and/or parental leave, with incentives for men to use them.’ This resolution was a key consideration during the development of our Global Parental Policy.

Working hand in hand

With the launch of our Global Parental Policy, we are moving forward with the development of a more sustainable and caring working environment for our employees and their families in Hong Kong and around the world. These shared standards for employees in all brands across Kering demonstrate our commitment to ensuring equal opportunities for women and men in the workplace. We understand that many companies and organisations across different industries have been carrying out similar efforts in Hong Kong, Asia and across the globe—we are honoured to be one such driving force for change. We will work with different partners on various initiatives that can help make our workplace and our community more equal, sustainable and diverse.

Our human resources team will be actively involved in the new Group policy, providing new parents with consistent support before and after the leave, with the aim of ensuring a smooth return to work in the short term and safeguarding the employee’s career development in the medium and long term. However, we understand that the parental policy is just one of many key elements in building a caring workplace and community. We will make sure that this Global Parental Policy is accompanied by many more initiatives in the future.

"Build a supportive and inclusive working environment for all our employees around the globe."

—Carlo Imò, Head of Kering Asia Pacific, Kering Group