GroupM Denmark Introduces New, Ambitious Family Policy

To create the best possible conditions for a sustainable family and work life, GroupM has introduced a new family policy. This means, that all GroupM Denmark’s employees will now have the same maternity/paternity conditions, regardless of gender, family constellation, or affiliation with the child.

The purpose of the new family policy is to create a maternity/paternity journey that is uniform and transparent for all employees. The groundbreaking family policy seeks to overcome 3 particular challenges:

1. All types of parents and families must be offered the same conditions.
2. Men and women must be guaranteed the same pension.
3. Parents need to be offered a more sustainable transition back to work after their maternity/paternity leave.

These initiatives are groundbreaking when comparing them with the general conditions offered in the industry.

“Our industry has not exactly been at the forefront when it comes to maternity/paternity conditions and family policies. It is greatly overdue to change this, and we hope to set a new standard for the entire industry with this policy. We want to remove the outdated notions of family constellations and create uniformity across biology, relationships, and gender. We are also eliminating the negative consequences for women going on maternity leave, when it comes to e.g. having lower pension savings and a poor work-life balance”, says Jonas Hemmingsen, Nordic CEO of GroupM.

A lot of new parents tend to change jobs not long after having a child. By being able to cater to the individual employee’s situation and family constallation, GroupM hopes to contribute positively to a more sustainable working life, and thereby both retain current and attract new talent.

With this new family policy, all types of parents and families will be given the same fair and equal terms. This applies regardless of whether they are LGBTQI+ parents, adoptive parents, or parents who do not live with their child on a day-to-day basis.

The policy also includes new pension conditions. With these new conditions, the employee is now paid full pension during the entire maternity/paternity period. As such, GroupM counteracts the fundamental problem of women having on average 24% less pension savings than men (Danica Pension, 8 March 2021).

“Even though local government legislations attempt to ensure more equality in who takes on the maternity or paternity leave, it is still mainly women who take on the majority of the maternity leave. Today, the minimum requirement for an employer is paying an employee’s pension while they’re working, which means that women often accumulate lower pension savings. As a company, we don’t want to be a deciding factor in who takes on how much of the maternity/paternity leave due to the amount of pension you’ll be paid. With this new family policy, we can ensure that women get the same financial benefits as men regardless of how much maternity leave they take,” says Jonas Hemmingsen.

Finally, the new conditions aim to make it easier for parents to return to work after having been on maternity/paternity leave. It is all about offering parents a better balance between their family and working life. At GroupM, they’ve experienced that parents leave the company soon after returning from their maternity/paternity. After conducting an internal study, the results showed that this dropout rate was largely due to a lack of flexible working hours, poor onboarding processes after returning to work, etc.

“With the addition of a new family member, a lot of people may need to stay at home more or perhaps need a more flexible workday. Therefore, most parents can benefit from not having to return to a full work week after their maternity or paternity leave. Studies also show that parents are typically much more efficient and productive at work when they return from maternity/paternity leave, so we are convinced that it can also be financially viable to allow for more flexibility,” says Jonas Hemmingsen.

According to Group’s new family policy, the primary maternity/paternity leave-taker can return to work on a reduced work week (30 hours) with full pay for up to 14 weeks and the secondary maternity/paternity leave-taker can work reduced hours for up to 7 weeks. This is to ensure that both the parent and child can more easily get accustomed to a new routine without having to worry about a change in finances.

GroupM Denmark’s New Family Policy

• Gender neutrality: Gender is irrelevant. Someone is either a “primary maternity/paternity leave-taker” or a “secondary maternity/paternity leave-taker” (in Danish maternity/paternity is translated to the gender-neautral “barselstager”).
• Diversity: The conditions apply to all kinds of families with constellations that differ from “a mother and a father with their biological child”.
• Equal rights for adoptive parents: Adoptive parents have the same rights and conditions as biological parents.
• 4 weeks of maternity/paternity leave immediately after the child’s birth for the secondary maternity/paternity-leave taker. The norm is only 2 weeks.
• Paid pension during the entire maternity/paternity leave period. The norm is pension paid only while working.
• Reduced amount of working hours after returning from maternity/paternity leave with full pay during this period.
• “Personal days”-days offered for all employees when needed with full pay.
• Bereavement leave with full pay. The norm is the unemployment benefit rate during the leave period.
• GroupM also offers employees to join maternity/paternity networks within the group as well as planning several family events, special office furniture, focus rooms, etc.