Volvo introduces 6-month parental leave for employees

Volvo Cars opted in its 40,000+ employees around the globe, in all plants and offices, into a new all-gender, paid parental leave policy.

The ‘Family Bond’ policy gives all employees with at least one year’s service a total of 24 weeks of leave at 80 per cent of their base pay by default. The policy applies to either parent and the leave can be taken anytime within the three first years of parenthood

The global policy is more inclusive and supportive than many existing policies around the world, and includes all legally registered parents, including adoptive, foster care and surrogate parents, as well as non-birth parents in same-sex couples. Some countries do not offer any paid leave to new parents, or exclude certain groups of parents – the latter is particularly true for fathers.

Volvo Cars’ global policy is inspired by national legislation in its home market of Sweden, famous around the globe for its generous parental leave arrangements, which have delivered tangible benefits for parents and children alike in recent decades. It follows a parental leave pilot scheme launched in the EMEA region in 2019, in which 46 per cent of all applicants were fathers.