"It’s about values, and families are core to our foundations and success.
Relationships with family, friends and communities enrich our lives and strengthen our social bonds. By supporting these relationships, we endeavour to help create a balanced, happy high performing employee.
This is why we introduced our Family Bond. This is more than a new benefit for our employees – it’s the embodiment of our company culture and values. Parental leave helps us build diverse teams, which sparks creativity and innovation, and strengthens our business. As you would expect of Volvo, it is gender neutral and applies equally to same sex and adoptive parents.
We are proud of our unparalleled Parental Leave policy and demonstrates it’s all about our values: How our employees define their family is unique – our aim is to inclusively support these choices with an integrated programme of wellbeing, respect, and cohesion, resulting in an engaged and motivated workforce."
We want Volvo Car Australia to be an inclusive and supportive workplace, where our people can be at their best and make a difference. Our company heritage is one of a human-centric brand and so our people practices naturally align with this ethos.
While we respect that the definition of “family” can look different for individuals, we acknowledge that families form a key part of an individual’s personal ecosystem and as an employer we can play a proactive role in creating the culture that enables our people to be their best as a parent and/or carer, as well as an employee.
We have a big focus on Wellbeing and have designed our Wellbeing framework centering around ‘your best self’ and provides a range of initiatives and programs across five dimensions of wellbeing: Mind, Body, Connection, Meaning and Financial. We work with several partners to provide key initiatives, such as the Wellbeing portal and App with EAP support.
Our Wellbeing portal and App provides wellness related content, including individual health score via Total Wellbeing Assessment and individual wellbeing plans (across physical, mental, social, financial and career wellbeing); self-guided therapy modules and practical tips; access to mindfulness and meditation videos; home workouts; sleep health tips; as well as access to a library of resources and articles. Our people can also invite up to five separate family members to access this.
Some of our other family friendly initiatives are summarised below.
Family Bond by Volvo Cars has received very positive feedback from our people, both personally and shared on behalf of their families. We have had two employees take it since it was launched in April 2021.
During lockdown in 2021, over 60% of our team are participating in STEPtember. Many employees are exercising with their family members as part of this initiative.
We have several employees who are based away from our office location, so work 100% remotely and have done so from day one.
An employee on parental leave has used paid Keeping In Touch days to attend a range of training workshops, and this has helped ready her with her transition back to work
Being a human-centric organisation people are central to our values. So, it is natural for us to endeavour to be internally and externally recognised as a family inclusive workplace.
We believe that this recognition will place us ahead of other workplaces when it comes to attracting, engaging, and retaining top talent of like-minded people.
Isabelle Chatila, Network Development Manager, Volvo Car Australia
I have always been a firm believer in flexible working which allows time to be the best employee I can be without sacrificing important time with family and friends.
Volvo Car Australia has been the first business in my 15 years in this industry that has truly met those needs. From the day I commenced, Volvo Car Australia allowed me to work remotely while providing me with online tools and support to be as effective and efficient as possible. This allowed me the flexibility to drop off and pick up my son and conduct meetings around times that suited me as well as the business.
More recently, I gave birth to my daughter and Volvo Car Australia was once again supporting me through the process. I was one of the first lucky employees in Australia to receive the Family Bond which gave me the confidence and peace of mind to enjoy my time on leave. I always felt supported with the Keep in Touch days and never felt like there were any barriers to my development whilst on leave. My colleagues and the management team provided me with updates and kept me involved as much or as a little as I wanted.
Transitioning back into work has been wonderfully simple as I return part time. All parties concerned have been extremely supportive and I feel encouraged and driven to take on new challenges as I progressively transition back to full time work later in the year. In collaboration with my manager, I have taken on projects that will contribute to my development as well as the achievement of team KPIs. It’s amazing knowing I can be productive at work while spending precious time with my little girl. Having these options give me a sense of pride to be working for Volvo Car Australia.
"It’s about values, and families are core to our foundations and success.
Relationships with family, friends and communities enrich our lives and strengthen our social bonds. By supporting these relationships, we endeavour to help create a balanced, happy high performing employee.
This is why we introduced our Family Bond. This is more than a new benefit for our employees – it’s the embodiment of our company culture and values. Parental leave helps us build diverse teams, which sparks creativity and innovation, and strengthens our business. As you would expect of Volvo, it is gender neutral and applies equally to same sex and adoptive parents.
We are proud of our unparalleled Parental Leave policy and demonstrates it’s all about our values: How our employees define their family is unique – our aim is to inclusively support these choices with an integrated programme of wellbeing, respect, and cohesion, resulting in an engaged and motivated workforce."
Parents At Work acknowledge and pay respect to the past, present and future Traditional Custodians and Elders of this nation and the continuation of cultural, spiritual and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
