Andrew Yates, the recently appointed CEO of KPMG Australia, started his journey by announcing a gender-neutral policy offering 26 weeks of paid parental leave to both primary and secondary caretakers. According to Yates, the new gender-neutral policy is one of his priorities under his primary package of initiatives and schemes as CEO of KPMG Australia.

Alison Kitchen, Chairman of KPMG teamed up with the Business Council Australia to work out a federal budget pitch in order to enhance female employment and participation in the employee workforce by refurbishing the leave arrangement. Kitchen strongly believes in gender-neutral and equally paid parental leave. The newly enacted policy by Yates, KPMG being a major step in substituting the former 18-week leave policy, which was only given to primary caretakers. As per the gender-neutral policy, formerly applied tenure guidelines, labels and waiting periods have been eliminated.

“Our team and the culture we all create here at KPMG will be central to my leadership. Bringing the best hearts and minds together and ensuring our people feel valued and rewarded is the best way to ensure KPMG delivers for our clients", shared Yates in media.

“Work-life balance is increasingly hard to achieve in the fast-paced and demanding space we occupy. I know that having the time and opportunity to care for our families, friends, and communities is a constant challenge. KPMG will now have amongst the most generous schemes of any large employer in Australia", added Yates.

KPMG is a founding sponsor of the scheme launched by Parents At Work and UNICEF, called the Family Friendly Workplace. The initiative is said to create a standard practice in various arenas. Emma Walsh, CEO of Parents At Work revealed that the scheme is aimed at maintaining work-life balance, for the employees.

“Our research of 6,000 Australian families reported some really startling statistics around the work/life tension people were feeling,” said Walsh. “62% of people said work/life tension and the conflict they were experiencing was really having a significant impact on their mental and physical health, and that it was having an on flow effect on their family life". added Walsh.

KPMG has also announced a cultural leave program permitting workers to take 'floating public holidays, that is, the employees can use an existing public holiday in their state or territory to celebrate some other public holiday or cultural event.