Back in the 1990s, Westpac made a trailblazing move by introducing paid maternity leave. It took a significant amount of work and required then HR head Ann Sherry to produce the numbers on how it would ultimately benefit the bottom line (she recently told me that eyes glazed over when she attempted to promote such a scheme on gender equity grounds alone).
But sure enough, once the business case was in, so was the business. And once Westpac was in, so were the rest of the banks and much of the rest of corporate Australia. Paid maternity leave quickly became the expectation rather than the exception: if you wanted to attain and retain the best female talent you had to support them through the process of having children.
NAB looks set to be a trailblazer for a different kind of leave: by offering a paid scheme to victims of domestic violence.
It’s a move that reflects the fact domestic violence is as much a business issue as it is a community or personal one.
The ABS estimates that more than 1.2 million women over the age of 15 have experienced domestic or family violence. Meanwhile, approximately one woman a week is killed by a current or former partner. When your workforce is 43,000 people large as NAB’s is, domestic violence is bound to be affecting employees.
Leaving aside the personal cost of domestic violence, recent research by KPMG found that violence against women and children (including non-domestic violence) cost Australia $13.6 billion in 2008-09, a figure that could rise exponentially if no action is taken. Access Economics has previously estimated domestic violence cost business $484 million in lost productivity between 2002 and 2003.
Sex Discrimination Commissioner Liz Broderick has, for a number of years now, been noting how domestic violence is a “hidden problem” affecting Australian business. It manifests in employees taking additional sick leave, often due to the physical signs of domestic violence, in workplace presenteeism, as well as in victims potentially leaving a job due to issues at home.
A day at work does not close the door on domestic violence, nor can the office be seen as a ‘sanctuary’ from issues occurring in the home. As Broderick said in a recent speech, it’s too often assumed that work is somewhere between the hours of 9am and 5pm and domestic violence can neatly be compartmentalised as a problem that occurs outside of those times – “that a woman’s entry into one world signals her safety in the other”.
Perhaps it’s also assumed that women affected by domestic violence are not in the paid workforce – that’s also wrong. More than two thirds of such women work, equating to more than 800,000 women, according to Broderick. She could be sharing an office with you right now. Domestic violence is a business issue. Acknowledging it as such goes a long way in not only addressing how the problem affects the bottom line, but also opening a dialogue to women who may be affected.
Offered to all staff no matter how long their tenure, NAB says its new scheme is designed to show the bank takes domestic violence seriously. It believes domestic violence victims will be more likely to speak up if they feel their employer will be supportive. Such victims will be offered access to counselling, additional leave and flexibility as required, an approach designed to ensure those affected can remain financially independent.
NAB’s not the first employer to offer such an entitlement, but it is the largest. While more than one million workers are now covered by the entitlement, according to Fairfax reports over the weekend, most are in the public sector. It started with the Surf Coast Shire Council back in 2010.
The next step is for NAB’s banking competitors to follow suit, and for the rest of corporate Australia to also demonstrate they take the issue seriously.