Coles Group's team members no longer need to serve 12 months before applying for paid parental leave benefits.
Paid parental leave for secondary carers is also increasing from two weeks to four weeks paid leave and is able to be taken up to 24 months after the birth, adoption, or surrogacy birth of a child, instead of the current 12 months. The leave can be taken flexibly, ie: all at once, across multiple days or in blocks of days. Paid parental leave will also be extended to primary carers who suffer a pregnancy loss whether through stillbirth, at birth, adoption, or surrogacy.
Coles Group Chief of People and Culture, Kris Webb said that these changes will go some way to helping team members planning their family.
“We want to make Coles a great place to work for all team members. This means supporting them through significant life moments such as planning to welcome a new addition to their family,” Webb said. "For people who are having a child and wanting to work for Coles, we don’t want them to feel they need to wait to receive primary carers leave, because we know that this is not always possible. No one should feel they need to hold off having a family because of their job.
“We also are pleased to be extending our secondary carers leave because we know how important it is for primary carers to have the support of their partners during these important times of their lives. This policy applies to team members who work in our stores, our distribution centres and our store support centre, so it’s really expansive and we hope will make a big difference to our team members planning to grow their families.”
