MotherBoard Signatory Spotlight ft. Telescopic
We sat down with Rita Mantler, Technical Director & Founder of Telescopic, who has brought in a new equal maternity and paternity leave policy.
Hi, firstly, could you please let me know about you, your position, and a little about Telescopic as a business?
I’m the founder of Telescopic, a digital transformation consultancy. We help our clients to optimise their processes and systems - and then plan, implement and integrate technical tools and systems to support their operations. This can range from mobile apps that allow for additional commercial income streams to automising their product management tools or configuring a CRM for their service delivery.
In a short paragraph could you please describe the initiative that you’ve brought in?
We introduced something very expensive for the company: paternity leave. We’ve committed to pay a full salary for 7 weeks of maternity AND paternity leave. This immediately causes full equal opportunities - we’ve now got an ongoing suspicion of all of our male employees as they are a very costly investment!
It's also important to support everyone, mums and dads, ongoing to ensure they stay sane and can deliver their work effectively. That means providing flexible working times and having visibility in the company calendars when people are out of the office for nursery or school drop offs or pick ups. That way we won’t have a clash in meetings and everyone is aware.
“I can’t believe why anyone would think 2 weeks of would leave people coming back motivated to do a good job”
What motivated you to bring this initiative to the organisation?
The unbelievably bad paternity leave provision. Experiencing first hand how having no support from the state (try maternity as a business owner!) but luckily a fantastic personal support network, I can’t believe why anyone would think 2 weeks of would leave people coming back motivated to do a good job, let alone sane. And don’t even expect anyone to have time to raise a happy family! I’m lucky to be in a very equal and supportive relationship where it would feel absolutely weird for me to be a “main carer”. You’ll really need at least 3 full time people of support per child in my opinion. So why is this made so difficult?
“There’s no point in promising great benefits when you’re not in a financial position to deliver these”
I also strongly believe that this is a critical piece of the puzzle in general equality. Yes, supporting women with more/better maternity is important, but realistically that will only mean that businesses are going to be even more suspicious of any women of a certain age. Just look at Austria (where I’m from). Mothers there sometimes can take up to years of paid maternity. Awesome, but does anyone there have a career or financial independence afterwards? No. And the % of dads taking up a pitiful amount of paternity has recently even FALLEN to about 4% because it doesn’t make sense financially and the society is still very weird when it comes to caring dads.
So, if men are seen as the same ‘risk factor’ when hiring and being compensated for work, it levels the playing field. And if men spend more time with their kids, they and the kids will be happier too! Everyone wins! World peace ensues!
But jokes aside, you need to show what is possible to force change.
What has the response been like?
No one has complained yet! Except for our bottom line of course, not only do we have to pay for this out of the company's pockets, we also have to arrange for replacement, so basically we’re investing triple into our employees happiness and the future of humanity. Phew.
“Be transparent with your employees”
I do have anxiety now that all of our male employees will suddenly decide that 5 kids in quick succession would be a great idea…
Are there any key learnings that you would like to share?
Some things are just worth doing. I was surprised by myself because I’m not usually the ‘change the world’ kind of person. For some reason I just did it! But the important thing is to prepare. Put that into your budget for the year, because you never know… If you’re a small business any extra investment like that can be a big risk, so be cautious and only promise what you can actually deliver. To ensure you don’t overcommit, be transparent with your employees. We have a clause in the policy that says that if the financial situation for some reason really doesn't allow for this, the amount of leave can be reduced or maybe we change the pattern of it. We’re transparent with financial targets and performance too. But that should be a last resort.
You’ll need a fallback in case things go really sideways. There’s no point in promising great benefits when you’re not in a financial position to deliver these. Start smaller and work your way up.
Here is a quote from Tom about his experiences with paternity leave at Telescopic and how this initiative has helped him:
“Having 7 weeks paternity leave not only gave me so much valuable time with my newborn daughter, but it also gave me the peace of mind that I didn’t have to worry about my return to work for much longer than the average new dad.
I believe that having the length of leave I did, I was able to foster a much deeper bond with my daughter than most new dads do before they return to work. I was able to better support my wife as a new mum, giving her more time to recover mentally and physically, before becoming a full-time mum.
The gratitude I have towards Telescopic for giving me this opportunity will be ever present and it is just another way Telescopic displays the value they place on their people. Whilst I have been incredibly lucky, it is such a shame that I am lucky and that 7 weeks is not the norm for new dads.”
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