At Sportsbet, Employees' receive incredible parental leave benefits gives both primary and secondary careers the time they need.
Being a working parent often means sacrifice – having to pick between being there for milestones or working to support the family.
At Sportsbet, they’ve boosted support for working parents so employees don’t have to make that call. Employees’ incredible parental leave benefits give both primary and secondary careers the time they need. Even after returning to the office, their flexible working opportunities are there to encourage Sportsbet employees to put family first.
Sportsbet asked some of their amazing working parents to share the kinds of support they’ve received so far, and their advice for balancing work and the challenges of parenthood.
My family consists of my husband, Matt, our daughter Scarlett (approaching her terrible 2s), Luna, our 3-year-old Rottweiler, and Gin & Tonic, our 8-year-old cats.
There are 3 of us: myself, Strategy Manager at Sportsbet. My partner, Sarah, is a Sustainable Material Consultant and the glue that holds us all together. And lastly my beautiful and bubbly 17-month-old daughter, Grey.
Sivaprakash Kumar, Workplace Technology Specialist
I’m originally from India and came to Australia to pursue my master’s degree. It quickly became my second home, and in 2015 my partner and I got married. We recently decided to expand our family and have been blessed with our baby boy Kalan. He’s a happy kid who keeps us on our toes all day long – we look forward to cherishing every moment with him onwards.
Lauren Hildebrand, Strategy Manager
My husband and I welcomed our son Charlie into the world early last year, and he’s officially passed into toddlerhood! He’s an active little monkey – you can’t keep him still for more than a couple of minutes, except when he is eating (he’s a bottomless pit when it comes to fruit)! He isn’t talking yet, but communicates effectively through a combination of baby sign language, dinosaur grunts and energetic pointing. My husband and I are both obsessed and Charlie clearly runs the house.
Sarah McWhirter, GM of Customer Sustainability
We’re the Rizzo family! There are four of us: my husband Jonathan, our 3-year-old son Darcy, our 10-month-old daughter Romy and me, Sarah (AKA Mummmm, Mummy, Mama). We both work full time and that enables us to enrol the kids in activities like swimming and soccer, dine out and explore the world! Our favourite things to do as a family are holidaying, going to parks and playgrounds, building cubby houses, jumping on the trampoline, playing superheroes, making pancakes on a Sunday morning, and having family dance-offs.
Michelle Wheldon, Growth Enablement Program Lead
It’s high energy, laughter and cuddles every day with my husband Alex, and daughters Eleanor (3) and Sophia (1) plus our two cats! Since returning to work Alex has grown into the role of being a stay-at-home Papa and is ensuring the girls get the best musical and baking education possible. We’re a wacky clan and we are always looking for adventure and with the girls being born/growing up in the times of COVID we’ve certainly learned how to be creative!
Sportsbet’s parental leave policy has to be one of the best in Australia, as it allows for both parents to take extended time off within the first year of your child’s life to assume the role of primary carer. I was able to take advantage of this policy, which allowed me to take an extended break from work to care for my daughter full time and also build a stronger connection that wouldn’t have otherwise been an option in many other workplaces. It also provided my partner with the ability to re-enter the workforce by being super comfortable with our daughter’s carer situation.
In addition to 2 weeks’ secondary carer leave, Sportsbet provides with an additional 1 day paid leave per week for up to 3 months, which serves a long way for new parents settling down with the addition to the family. With medical appointments for my partner or my son, the team was extremely supportive and offered me flexible hours during the general working days.
Sportsbet’s generous 6 months paid parental leave policy is an amazing show of support for employees. It meant I did not have to worry about rushing back to work after having Charlie and that I could take a few extra months to get to know him better without any added financial pressure.
The first three months after Charlie was born were a complete blur for me – I was a sleep deprived hormonal mess – I can’t imagine what it would have been like to have to go back to work straight after that hectic period. Now that I am back at work, I really value the opportunity to work part-time which enables me to get the balance I am looking for with work and home life. My people leader was very supportive in the weeks leading up to my return and we discussed several options as to what my return might look like and how best to ease me back into work.
Sportsbet’s parental leave policy is extremely generous and enabled me to spend precious moments with both my children in their early stages of life without feeling like I needed to rush back to work. Not to mention, with my firstborn, we took the opportunity to go to Italy for a month during my parental leave and had an absolute ball.
The team I work in has also been great and understanding. There’s never any pressure to be available 100% of the time during 9 – 5 hours and there’s genuine care for the wellbeing of the entire family. Also, being able to access discounted health insurance and the EAP has been great in ensuring that my husband in particular, but also the family, stays healthy physically and mentally.
When I returned to work from maternity leave it was the middle of winter. Scarlett had been at childcare for a few months already but being the middle of winter she was constantly getting sick while she built her immune system. This meant I had to work while looking after a sick child. It’s bloody hard and sometimes I had to go offline for a few hours to make things work! For any outstanding work I was able to lean on my colleagues or team to assist or if I wanted to I could complete the work at a later time. It made me feel less stressed knowing that the company understood that I am a mum first.
Thanks to the time I could take off, I came to understand my daughter better and that in turn allowed me to be a better partner. It took a massive weight off Sarah’s shoulders knowing that I was more in-tune with our child and able to ease the burden that she felt. We grew stronger as a family unit and it is something I would recommend to any new or expectant parent
Something that stood out was how my team considered the safety of my newborn during the pandemic. They’ve enabled me to work full time remotely until I personally see myself ready for the return to work transition.
Gearing up for my return to work, we enrolled Charlie into a local childcare and started him 2 weeks early in the hopes of easing him in. Safe to say, it did not go to plan and by my work start date we were still getting calls from childcare to pick up Charlie early as he was inconsolable. I am thankful that Sportsbet allowed employees to work from home because it meant I could drop off Charlie just before 9 and pick him up just after 5, rather than the much longer days which would be needed if I was commuting to the city everyday.
During this transition period, my people leader was very understanding of our childcare troubles and I was able to pick up Charlie in the early afternoon and then log back in to finish off work later at night when he was sleeping.
I love that I can orient my days to start a little later so I can kiss my son goodbye and wish him a great day at Kinder or to finish a little earlier so I can meet him at the gate and be the first to hear about his day. With my youngest in childcare, she’s also picking up every bug imaginable – Sportsbet’s culture is understanding. It’s life and people get sick so if I need to drop and run, I know Sportsbet has my back.
Remaining connected and present in my daughters’ lives is extremely important to me. I love being able to spend quality time with the girls in the morning before dropping them at childcare or being able to take moments out of my day when they are at home to be able to attend activities with them. We go to the library every Wednesday to read books and catch up with other kids and when the weather is nice we love to get out to the park for an hour to enjoy the sun. I know that I’m able to get the work done after the girls have gone to bed and still produce high quality outcomes for the team and broader Growth department.
I am ridiculously organised. I use my work calendar not just for meetings but also set up for personal reminders and personal events on the weekend. On a Sunday I also plan out the week by doing a full menu for the week which we stick to, get all household chores done (with the help of hubby) so I don’t need to worry about any of that during the working week. I also couldn’t do it all without childcare. The fact that you can drop your kid off, know they will be safe, fed, put down for a nap and be educated throughout the day is a god send.
Make sure you always allow time to connect with your children. We all want to do well at work, and we want to exceed expectations but that shouldn’t come at the expense of our relationships with our children. Even when things are busy, take time at the end of the day to eat dinner with your child, help them get ready for bed, and read some books to them. Even before work starts, don’t make the morning all about getting ready for the day. Allow some time to play with your kids, go to a park, etc. We don’t have a lot of time outside of the workday to spend with our kids, so take advantage of every minute.
Planning occasional day-offs ahead and arranging flexible working hours on the upcoming days helped greatly in balancing the journey with my partner. We have access to a one-stop resource platform where you can get a lot of useful information about the parenting journey. I have also had my manager and the HR team support me throughout with any questions.
I am definitely still trying to figure out how to balance being a parent and working – there are days when I think I have it under control and then other days when I send an SOS to my parents for help. Having open conversations with your people leader about priorities and flexibility is a great place to start. My husband and I try to share childcare pickups and drop offs responsibilities – this changes each week depending on who is busy and what early/late meetings we both have but it’s working so far. I try to speak to other parents and find out how they are managing (or not); sometimes it’s just nice to know we are not alone in the struggle to get the balance right.
At Sportsbet, they love different, and they love bringing excitement to life. Learn more about Sportsbet and find your next role here.
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