Google rolls out family-building benefits to Australia, New Zealand

New benefits include financial reimbursement for family-building expenses

BY Dexter Tilo 12 Apr 2024

More than 2,000 Google employees in Australia and New Zealand can now receive reimbursement for family-building expenses as the tech giant expands its parental benefits.

Google's financial reimbursement will cover employees' fertility treatment expenses, such as egg freezing, in vitro fertilisation (IVF), and intrauterine insemination (IUI).

It will also cover their adoption and surrogacy costs, according to Google.

Employees will also be given access to a 24/7 video appointment with experts from over 35 specialties who can provide parental support.

"Starting or growing a family should not come at an inaccessible cost, that's why we're investing in the expansion of our enhanced family-building benefits, to help our Googlers regardless of what their parental journey may look like," said Jessica Campbell, Market HR Lead, Google AuNZ, in a statement.

Family-related benefits at Google

The new initiatives add to Google's growing list of offered family-related assistance benefits, such as:

Up to twenty-four weeks of paid maternity leave to support pregnancy, recovery from childbirth, and baby bonding
18 weeks of paid baby bonding leave offered to all parents regardless of gender, as well as access to personalised support from a dedicated parenting expert for Googlers, and their dependents
Two weeks of paid ramp-back time to help employees adjust to their new work-life balance, allowing new parents to work a minimum of 50% of their regular weekly working hours while still being paid their regular weekly salary.
20 days of subsidised back-up care per year for the days when employees' regular childcare falls through.

"These benefits will enable us to offer invaluable support to our employees during each stage of growing their families - from preconception through to returning to work," Campbell said.

Google joins the list of organisations offering family-building benefits to Australian and New Zealand employees, such as Amazon, which rolled out similar perks last year.

It comes as fertility, adoption, or surrogacy benefits emerged as the top family-building benefits that are highly sought after by employees, according to a Maven Clinic report in 2022.