Saga insurance firm to offer workers one week paid ‘grandparental leave’

Government proposals to extend paid parental leave to grandparents were scrapped in 2018

Research cited by the government suggested that nearly two million people had given up work, reduced work hours or taken time off to care for their grandchildren (Getty)

Employees of insurance firm Saga are to be offered a week of paid time off when their grandchildren are born.

The company, which offers services to the over-50s, said it is the first move of its kind for a major UK business.

It said it is granting the paid leave to recognise and celebrate the role of grandparents, after its own research found that a quarter of working grandparents said that it is “difficult” for them to balance work and their family life.

Saga also announced that the grandchildren of all the company’s staff will also have access to its on-site nursery.

New grandparents in the UK have no rights under employment law to paid or unpaid leave to spend time with their family.

Shelley Whittam, who works in Saga’s insurance department, said she was “excited” to take the paid week off later this month to spend time with her new grandchild and help out with childcare.

Jane Storm, chief people officer at Saga, said: “This is about helping new grandparents celebrate a special moment and play a role in their growing families from day one.

“It’s also a symbol of how important older workers are to their companies and to society.

“Working life is getting longer, but the first question many people over 50 still hear is ‘when are you going to retire?’.

“We want to change that mindset and show that age is no barrier to continued professional success.

“As a purpose-led business we have a responsibility to build a representative, multigeneration workforce fit for the future, that serves the needs of our customers.

“Our customers are mostly over 50 and we want to have more colleagues here that reflect the community we serve. We also think this idea should be a key attraction for retention and recruitment.”

In 2015, the government had proposed that grandparents could take paid time off work as part of the shared parental leave (SPL) scheme.

SPL, which allows parents to split 50 weeks of leave between them following the birth of a child, was launched in April 2015.

The current SPL rate is £151.97 a week or 90 per cent of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower, for 37 weeks.

Plans to extend leave to grandparents were announced by the then chancellor George Osborne at the Conservative Party conference in October 2015.

He said: “In many families, grandparents play a central role in caring for their grandchildren and helping to keep down the costs of childcare. Increasing numbers of grandparents, however, also want to remain in work themselves.”

Labour’s then deputy leader Harriet Harman had proposed similar ideas in April 2015, such as employees with at least one year of service being able to take 18 weeks – unpaid – of leave per child up until that child’s 18th birthday.

But all the proposals by the government and the opposition were ditched in 2018.

Research cited by the government suggested that nearly two million people had given up work, reduced work hours or taken time off to care for their grandchildren.

Of those who said they had never taken time off to look after a grandchild under the age of 16, one in 10 said they had their request turned down by their employer or said they felt unable to ask.

More than half of mothers count on grandparents for childcare when they first return to work from maternity leave, the government also said.