'Welcome back to work' baby bonuses: Good for business?

A ground-breaking Australian company offers women who opt to return from maternity leave double pay for six weeks — claiming it's cheaper than replacing them

It can be hard for any new mom to leave her child five days a week, but one Australian company is giving a hey financial incentive to return to the workplace.
(Image credit: Jamie Grill/Corbis)

For many new moms, returning to a job after maternity leave can play havoc with their emotions. But now, an Australian company has introduced a policy designed to make the decision a little easier: "Welcome back to work" bonuses. Is it good business to lure new moms back to the workplace with financial incentives? Here, a brief guide:

How much do these new mothers get?

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

How does that stack up to the U.S.?

The U.S. is one of only four countries that does not mandate paid maternity leave. Here, women get a maximum of 12 weeks unpaid leave under the Family Medical Leave Act, although companies can choose to offer their own paid leave (and the state of California does extend parental leave benefits, even to same-sex couples). The Australian policy is "a heartwarming (albeit mostly foreign) concept," says Meredith Carroll at Babble. It's great to see a company see "postpartum employees as assets instead of liabilities."

Why so generous?

More than half of the financial giant's 10,000 employees are women. Every year, up to 600 of them take maternity leave, and some don't come back. "We need to be above the minimum because we want to make sure we attract and retain the best quality talent we can," IAG's chief executive, Mike Wilkins, tells the Sydney Morning Herald. "Yes it's generous, but we're a business and it is about making sure we get quality people coming back to us."

Isn't that expensive?

Yes, but so is recruiting and training new staffers to replace women who drop out, Wilkins says. In the long run, the company expects the program to be "cost neutral."

Will other companies follow suit?

Ged Kearney, president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, calls the move a "major advance" for women that could inspire other companies to sweeten their policies, too. But of course, not everyone is applauding. Several people have argued at the women's workplace blog The Grindstone that it's unfair to offer incentives to moms but not to childless women facing their own life milestones.

Sources: ABC.net, Adelaide Now, Babble, Huffington Post, Sydney Morning Herald