Loyalty leave: Is this the answer to retention?

The initiative provides five days annual leave for employees with more than three years' consecutive service

BY HRD 21 May 2019

Regular annual leave is essential because it allows employees to spend time doing what’s important to them, as well as rest and recharge to ensure they can deliver great results for customers.

Consequently, it’s important to provide employees with more of it, according to ANZ Group Executive, Talent & Culture, Kathryn van der Merwe.

“Many of our employees have told us that they want more flexibility to focus on what’s important outside work, and one way we’re giving them that is to provide more paid time off,” added van der Merwe.

Indeed, ANZ’s new loyalty leave initiative provides an additional five days annual leave for employees who have had more than three years' consecutive service.

The initiative is part of ANZ’s focus on improving staff wellbeing and engagement, as well as attracting and retaining talent. It will be offered to staff in 24 other countries across the ANZ network.

While ANZ considered a number of potential enhancements to various employee benefits, annual leave is a ‘core’ benefit that is relevant to all permanent employees, regardless of seniority, gender, or status as a parent, added van der Merwe.

ANZ is following an international trend where many organisations are offering greater workplace flexibility to better engage and energise staff.

Moreover, the bank was the first to roll out an ‘Agile’ model at scale in Australia and now the first to offer an increase in paid annual leave.