Transurban exports parental leave to US

Transurban is preparing to offer its Australian parental leave policy to its American employees for the first time.

Transurban director Sam Mostyn at Werribee Park near Melbourne yesterday. Picture: David Geraghty.

Transurban director Sam Mostyn says more companies must break the stigma of viewing family friendly arrangements in the workplace as “women’s issues’’ as the toll road giant prepares to offer its Australian parental leave policy to its American employees for the first time.

Ms Mostyn, who is also on the board of property giant Mirvac, airline Virgin Australia and travel insurer Cover-More and has long been an advocate of gender equality and diversity, said too often policies promoting flexibility and inclusion were viewed as simply accommodating women who were juggling children and work.

“Having companies that understand and set in place a tone around flexible work arrangements and respectful care arrangements and don’t just simply rely on the letter of the law is part of how good businesses actually get better,’’ Ms Mostyn said in an interview with The Australian to mark International Women’s Day. “I see it at Transurban in all of our HR policies and systems. We have to keep working on inclusion of women in this environment, but they have to move away from being viewed as women’s ­issues. For us to really harness the true available talent, we have to have policies truly embracing of flexibility and inclusion.’’

Ms Mostyn, the Australian Football League’s first female commissioner, also made her first public comments since sex scandals engulfed the chief executives of Kerry Stokes’s Seven West Media and QBE Insurance. Ms Mostyn recently joined embattled Seven West Media CEO Tim Worner as a director of the Sydney Swans AFL club.

While she declined to comment directly on the Seven and QBE scandals or Mr Worner’s position on the Swans board, she said it was important there was disclosure within companies of relationships between employees who were direct reports.

“Good companies and most of the companies I am associated with do have good codes of ­conduct where transparency of relationships is important, most particularly where relationships occur between direct reports,’’ she said.

But she echoed the comments last week of Reserve Bank board member Kathryn Fagg, who said she was against imposing US-style “love contracts” that may ban office ­relationships.

Ms Fagg argued that romantic relationships in the workplace were the ­reality of the modern world, particularly given how much time people spend at work.

Ms Mostyn agreed. “The code of conduct at Transurban is termed ‘personal relationships’. It acknowledges that in the workplace there are these things that occur. It is a disclosure and transparency issue,” Ms Mostyn said.

‘‘It recognises the reality that they are relationships that happen at work but that you need to have consistent practices about the culture of organisations in place to avoid the issues that come when there are particular power relationships where people are reporting to each other.’’

Ms Fagg, who is the president of Chief Executive Women, also warned last week that community expectations had changed about the disclosure and management of office romances and that too often women were disadvantaged and left as scapegoats when relationships broke down.

Her comments came after QBE revealed it had slashed the pay of chief executive John Neal after learning of a relationship the CEO had with his personal ­assistant, who also does work for the company’s board.

The QBE board slashed Mr Neal’s short-term bonus by $550,000 for his failure to reveal the office liaison in accordance with the group’s executive code of conduct.

The QBE revelations came after Seven West Media was embroiled in scandal after it was revealed Mr Worner had had an affair with group executive assistant Amber Harrison.

Seven cut Mr Worner’s bonus by $100,000 in 2014, but revealed only late last year that it related to his lack of disclosure of the “inappropriate” affair.

Meanwhile Ms Mostyn will tomorrow announce to Transurban’s US employees that the company is implementing its Australian parental leave policy, ­offering them 16 weeks fully paid leave. Importantly, both male and female primary carers will be eligible and the same entitlement will apply for adoption leave.

Employees accessing this leave will be eligible for up to 52 weeks leave in total.

American workplace laws do not mandate any paid parental leave. Companies are only required to offer 12 weeks unpaid leave for new mothers. Last year only about 21 per cent of US companies offered any maternity leave and only 17 per cent paid ­paternity leave, according to The Society for Human Resource Management.

“As more companies embrace their role as highly attractive employers and you stand for something as an Australian company, we were proud to take an Australian model into our US business,’’ Ms Mostyn said.

“We won’t apply artificial boundaries to our staff just because they work in the US.

‘‘We know our culture matters, we want our people in the US to feel part of the Transurban group.’’

Of Transurban’s total workforce of 1250, it has 108 employees based in North America, of which 33 per cent are female.

The group also now has equal gender representation on its executive committee and three ­female directors on its board following the appointment of Future Fund board member and Sonic Healthcare director Jane Wilson in January.

“This company does really stand for something as an employer of choice for women wherever they are in the world,’’ Ms Mostyn said.