Whether you know exactly when you want to start a family or you’re not even sure if you want kids yet, chances are, parental leave policies aren’t exactly at the top of your priority list when you begin hunting for a new job. Instead, you’re probably more concerned with things like salary, benefits, workplace culture and progression.

However, a company’s parental leave policy will likely have a huge impact on your financial security, career progression opportunities and mental health. 

After all, while the government’s Statutory Maternity Leave policy means that all mothers are entitled to up to 52 weeks of maternity leave, the first six weeks are paid at 90% of your average weekly earnings, while the next 33 weeks are paid at a maximum of only £172.48 per week. The remaining weeks are unpaid. And Statutory Paternity Leave is even less generous.

In other words, it falls on the organisation to top up your maternity leave. If your company has a generous policy, you’ll be able to take the time off you need after having a child without sacrificing too much of your income. However, a bad policy could mean you suffer financially or you may even find yourself having to return to work before you’re ready.

So, if you are considering having children in the future, it’s vital to be aware of your organisation’s parental leave policy.

Until now, however, it hasn’t always been easy during the job hunting stage to figure out exactly what that parental policy will look like. Often, you actually have to wait until the contract is drawn up.

Now, a new platform has launched in an effort to make checking and comparing different companies’ policies a little easier. We chatted with co-founders of Nugget Savings, Katie Guild and Harriet Morton-Liddle about why they built the platform to promote parental leave transparency and how they hope it will transform the job hunting process for prospective parents.

Parental leave policies can tell you a lot about a company, whether you’re planning to have children or not

According to Guild and Morton-Liddle, it’s important to understand your company’s parental leave policy, no matter who you are.

For prospective parents, it’s important from a financial and practical perspective. 

“The UK is a very expensive place to have children,” says Guild. “We have some of the worst maternity pay in Europe, combined with some of the most expensive childcare in the world. So a great parental leave policy is often the deciding factor for having a child or not.”

On the other hand, parental leave policies can also help us understand the company’s ethos. So, even if you don’t plan on starting a family, it’s worth something that’s worth looking into.

“You can tell a lot about how a company treats its employees by looking at their parental leave policy,” says Guild. “Will they offer you remote working or enable you to flex or reduce your hours when you return to work? All of these factors are critical to being able to enjoy parental leave and feeling like you have an inclusive workplace.”

Morton-Liddle adds: “No matter your age, your level of experience or even if you think having a family isn’t for you right now or ever, being informed on your company’s maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental leave policies is really important should that change in the future. It’s also important to be a part of an inclusive workplace, and one that supports parents contributes to this.”

Parental leave policies are notoriously tricky to find

Guild and Morton-Liddle created Nugget Savings in an effort to make parental leave policies more transparent, because, as they explain to us, organisations can sometimes keep them hidden.

“In most instances it’s impossible to [figure out a company’s policy in advance],” Guild says. “Employers are not upfront about their policies and they are often hidden in the depths of staff handbooks that you can only access once you have got the job, which isn’t much use when you’re trying to find a long term role.” 

Plus, many women feel awkward or even worried when enquiring about parental leave policies during the job interview process.

“Women have traditionally felt worried to ask up front at interviews about parental leave policies as it leaves them open to discrimination,” says Guild. “There is a concern that by doing so, your potential employer would see you as a ‘flight risk’ and would instead rather employ someone who will ‘cost the business less’ by potentially leaving in the future to start a family.”

According to Guild, the combination of employer’s lack of transparency and womens’ fear of discrimination is fuelling the gender pay gap.

“Women are less likely to move jobs or sectors or industries or even start new businesses for fear of worse maternity pay,” she says. “It’s a problem which men don’t face [in the same way].”

Give Nugget Savings a try for yourself

Nugget Savings was created to help prospective employees look into various organisations’ parental leave policies. Employees can also help encourage greater transparency by sharing their own experiences.

“We have crowdsourced this information,” says Guild. “We gave the call out to our community and we landed with over 600+ parental leave policies from a huge range of companies such as Sainsbury’s, Deliveroo, NHS, PwC and Vodafone. It’s a real problem that women recognise and we just love that we’ve collectively come together to solve the problem and remove that discrimination which plagues women in their careers.”

On the platform, you’ll be able to find information about pay amount, length of pay, length of time to qualify, clawback policies and any additional benefits.

The overall quality of each company’s parental leave policy is indicated by a Nugget Score, which makes assessing each company a little easier.

“For example, companies with a score of 1 indicate a below-average policy, 2 being average and 3 being above average or competitive,” she says.

Nugget Savings is free to use after you’ve shared your current parental leave policy. It’s also available for £3.99 for three months. Find out more about Nugget Savings here.

Images: Getty