“Our new, inclusive global parental leave is a major step forward in our ambitious programme towards gender parity within the group, aiming to help employees to balance parenthood and career and increase diversity within teams, resulting in better business performance overall,” says Armelle Saint-Raymond, L'OCCITANE Group Human Resources Vice-President, in today’s media release about the new policy.
The new parental leave policy at L’Occitane Group
The new L’Occitane policy gives new parents leave as follows, at least 20 weeks of full-pay leave for what the company calls primary caregivers and at least 12 weeks for secondary caregivers. The media release explains that the new policy applies to parents of children that join the family by birth, by adoption, or by surrogacy.
It’s “a global parental leave policy to support families of all shapes and sizes,” according to the release. And it will apply to employees in L’Occitane-owned stores, in factories and production facilities, as well as in company offices.
Employees in L’Occitane headquarters in Switzerland will have the new benefit this year. And the company plans to have the benefit for employees worldwide in 2 years’ time (by April 2022).
A policy and strategy for people
The new policy will benefit both women and men. “L'Occitane’s new parents enjoy more generous maternity and paternity leave than local legislation would provide for in many countries,” explains the release, adding that “The difference is particularly marked in the US and Asia, which together account for more than 50% of the Group's activity.”
But the company’s also takes care to note that “women currently represent 87% of L'Occitane’s global workforce” and asserts that “The new parental leave policy strengthens the Group's existing provisions to attract, retain and advance women, which is one of the three pillars of its commitment to sustainability.”
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Deanna Utroske is a leading voice in the cosmetics and personal care industry as well as in the indie beauty movement. As Editor of the news website CosmeticsDesign.com, she writes daily articles about the business of beauty in the Americas region and regularly produces video interviews with cosmetics, fragrance, personal care, and packaging experts as well as with indie brand founders.