General Mills enlists new dads with six months parental leave

If the Jolly Green Giant has a Jolly Green Baby he’ll now be entitled to six months off to care for it.

The food firm behind a host of household names including Green Giant sweetcorn and Haagen-Dazs ice cream have announced a sweeping new parental policy.

Dads as well as mums at the General Mills UK are now entitled to 26 weeks of paid parental leave.

The company is also investing in coaching to help workers with the transition to becoming working dads and working mums. That’ll include help and advice around the time they become parents as well as with returning to the workplace at the end of their leave.

The policy has been drawn up with fathers in mind. In a LinkedIn post at the weekend the firm’s HR director for Northern Europe noted,  “We would love to think we will enable more men to be the primary carer of their child.”

He also talked up the benefits of the policy in retaining staff, saying that the generous new allowance would hopefully mean employees feel more ‘connected’ to the company they work for.

Commitment and leadership

The firm is responsible for a number of famous names when it comes to food including Green Giant, Old El Paso Mexican food kits, Nature Valley snack bars and Jus-Rol pastry.

They join the likes of Diageo and O2 in radically improving their parental leave policy in 2019.

Ben Pearman, managing director of General Mills UK said, “We are committed to changing the conversation in this space. Our new policy is a thoughtful approach to ensure we are more inclusive, especially when it comes to real actions to improve aspects of gender pay equity such as pension differences.

“By investing in external coaching, we hope to help our employees have the positive experience that having a child deserves to be.

“It’s important that we show our commitment and leadership with progressive employment policies that support equality and inclusion in the workplace.”

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• leadership paternity rights