Monzo to offer staff paid leave after pregnancy loss

Challenger bank Monzo becomes one of the first UK FinTechs to introduce paid leave for employees who are affected by the loss of a pregnancy as part of the bank’s mental health drive.

Under the new policy, workers who suffer from pregnancy loss, including stillbirth, miscarriage and abortion, will have up to 10 days additional paid leave. In addition, extra leave could be approved by managers if they felt the staff member was not ready to return to work.

The leave will also be offered to workers who are partners or surrogate mothers, “recognising that pregnancy loss doesn’t just affect women or heterosexual partners”, the bank said.

Monzo’s UK policy was put in place two months ago and is set to be extended to its US staff over the next six to eight weeks.

Furthermore, the challenger bank set up an employee support group for employees going through similar journeys. Alongside its new miscarriage leave policy, the neobank also began offering staff and their partners undergoing fertility treatments an extra eight days off in paid fertility leave every year.

Under UK employment law, businesses allow parents to use planned maternity or paternity leave if they lose their baby after 24 weeks when it is considered a stillbirth. Any loss before that is counted as a miscarriage and does not qualify them for maternity leave or pay. It is then up to the discretion of employers whether to offer compassionate leave, annual leave, or unpaid holiday.

The announcement comes weeks after Channel 4 launched a pregnancy loss policy including two weeks’ paid leave.

However, Monzo and Channel 4 are hardly the only firms to introduce this new policy. Australia-based buy now pay later company Zip has also embraced bereavement leave for pregnancy loss.

In April, Zip started offering two weeks paid leave to parents including partners, following pregnancy loss before 20 weeks, it said in a release. The policy will be available to all employees, irrespective of tenure.

Those who experience pregnancy loss after 20 weeks are already covered by Zip’s parental leave policy, where primary carers get 16 weeks paid leave while secondary carers get 4 weeks paid.

Furthermore, London-based InsurTech company YuLife too launched miscarriage leave for its employees in late April. YuLife’s pregnancy loss policy gives employees five days of paid leave whether they or their partner are the ones who miscarried.

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