Australia’s government-funded Paid Parental Leave scheme now provides eligible families with up to 26 weeks of pay.

For children born or adopted on or after 1 July 2026, Parental Leave Pay increased from 120 to 130 days. Of those 130 days, 20 – or four working weeks – are generally reserved for the non-primary carer/partner.

On paper, this may seem like a relatively simple expansion of an existing entitlement. In practice, however, it represents something more significant: another deliberate step towards treating the care of a new child as a responsibility to be shared, rather than work that falls primarily to one parent (most often the mother).

But reserving leave for partners doesn’t guarantee they’ll feel comfortable taking it.

 

Instead, for many fathers and other non-birth parents, the decision will still be shaped by workplace expectations rather than any statutory entitlement.

They may fear that taking an extended period away from work will make them appear less committed, disrupt an important project or affect their future opportunities. Similarly, many employers formally support parental leave but continue to treat a partner taking more than a week or two as unusual.

That means the success of the 2026 changes will depend partly on what happens inside individual workplaces. Employers have an opportunity to turn a statutory entitlement into a normal and expected part of working life: and to encourage a more balanced caregiving dynamic that continues long after parental leave ends.

What changed in Australia’s Paid Parental Leave scheme in 2026?

The expansion that took effect from 1 July 2026 is the final stage of a gradual increase in government-funded Parental Leave Pay from 18 to 26 weeks.

For children born or adopted from that date:

The payments can also be taken flexibly within two years of the child’s birth or adoption. This means families don’t necessarily have to divide the entitlement into one uninterrupted block taken by one parent and then the other.

Government Parental Leave Pay is separate from any employer-funded paid parental leave. It’s also different from the unpaid parental leave available to eligible employees under the National Employment Standards.

Depending on their circumstances and workplace policies, parents may be able to combine these different forms of leave.

Having leave available doesn’t mean it will be taken

The four-week reserved portion is intended to give partners a clearer opportunity – and incentive – to spend meaningful time caring for their child. In doing so, it removes one important obstacle to sharing parental leave: those days can no longer simply be absorbed into the birth parent’s entitlement.

But legislation can only go so far. Whether non-birth parents take the leave available to them will also depend on whether their workplace genuinely expects and supports them to do so.

The barriers in this regard generally break down into two key areas:

These concerns may never be stated openly. However, employees notice who takes parental leave, how managers respond and whether senior people genuinely disconnect while they’re away. An organisation can describe itself as family-friendly while its managers continue to assume that mothers will take lengthy periods of leave and fathers will return to work after a week or two, or still be available for calls.

There are, however, some encouraging signs that these expectations are beginning to change.

According to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, men now account for 20% of employees taking primary or universally available employer-funded parental leave – an increase of three percentage points in a year.

Against this, however, almost half of employers still distinguish between “primary” and “secondary” carers in their parental leave policies.

These labels can reinforce the very division the expanded government scheme is intended to challenge by making unequal caregiving the assumed starting point.

The four weeks reserved under the government scheme send a different message: partners aren’t merely there to provide short-term support to the birth parent. They’re parents and caregivers in their own right.

The habits formed during parental leave can last for years

Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that women continue to perform more unpaid work than men, averaging four hours and 53 minutes a day compared with three hours and 52 minutes for men. And, while encouraging partners to take meaningful periods of parental leave will not eliminate that imbalance by itself, it can help establish shared responsibility from the outset.

After all, how parents divide leave following a child’s birth often influences how they divide care long after both have returned to work.

When one parent spends considerably more time providing care from the beginning, they’re more likely to become the person who knows the child’s routines, manages appointments, communicates with childcare and notices when something needs to be done. This means they tend to become the household’s default caregiver, even if it happens gradually and unconsciously.

The same pattern can then shape whose work gets interrupted when a child is sick, childcare is unavailable or an appointment falls during business hours. Even where both parents are employed, the mother is more likely to be the one expected to rearrange their day or take leave.

This can have consequences that go well beyond the occasional day away from work. Repeated interruptions can affect the projects an employee accepts, their availability for meetings and travel and their employer’s willingness to consider them for advancement.

Over time, an unequal division of care at home can contribute to unequal opportunities and earnings at work.

What employers can do to support shared care

Employers obviously can’t determine exactly how individual families divide their caring responsibilities. They can, however, create a workplace in which taking parental and carer’s leave is treated as a normal part of working life for every parent.

This begins with workplace parental leave policy.

Where possible, you should replace “primary” and “secondary” carer categories with gender-neutral parental leave that gives both parents meaningful time away from work. You should also explain how employer-funded leave interacts with the government scheme, rather than leaving employees to navigate the different entitlements themselves.

Line managers and HR teams have a particularly vital role to play. Conversations about parental leave shouldn’t assume that a non-birth parent plans to take only a week or two. Instead, proactively discuss the options available, ask employees what arrangement they’re considering and plan appropriate cover (without subtly signalling that an extended absence would be inconvenient).

If possible, you should also give your employees some visible examples of the policy in effect. When senior fathers and other non-birth parents take substantial periods of leave, genuinely disconnect and return without a career penalty, they demonstrate that the organisation’s support extends beyond the wording of its policy.

That support should continue after parental leave ends by normalising fathers and other non-birth parents using paid personal/carer’s leave when a child is sick or childcare arrangements unexpectedly fall through. Employees should not be questioned more closely, treated as unusually helpful partners or made to feel that caring for their own child is primarily somebody else’s responsibility.

Other practical steps include:

In short…

This year’s changes provide a timely reason to review both your parental leave policies and everyday practices.

The goal shouldn’t simply be making sure employees know that four weeks have been reserved for partners, but creating a workplace in which those employees can use their entitlement without feeling that they’re placing their careers at risk.

Want more?

Catalina Consultants can help you review and update your parental leave policies, communicate entitlements clearly and equip managers to support shared care in practice.

Get in touch with our HR consultants to discuss your workplace.

There is little doubt wage rises are coming in 2022. With inflation surging and the cost of living taking centre stage this federal election, there’s now little doubt your employees will be seeking a pay rise in 2022. However, a lot of business owners feel ill-equipped to deal with higher incomes, with some telling me they’re already losing staff to competitors willing to offer more.

That’s why I thought it was time to look at non-financial benefits, or what you can do when you can’t afford a pay rise.

Reduced hours/increased time off

If you can’t afford to pay someone more, what about asking them to work less? The opportunity to take more holidays, leave work earlier or have a Flexi day each fortnight holds real appeal for many employees. That means it could be a good way to keep them on board without needing to offer more money.

If you’re worried about the impact this might have on your business’s productivity, you don’t necessarily have to be. A comprehensive Icelandic study found that there was no reduction in an organisation’s level of service when its employees went from working five days a week to four days a week. In fact, many indicators of service provision and productivity actually rose. At the same time, employees’ happiness and well-being improved dramatically.

If you’re going to go down this path though, it helps to make sure that your employees actually want to work less. For some workers, cutting hours may feel like a demotion or backwards step in their career rather than a benefit.

Other flexible working options

It’s not just time off that many employees want, it’s also the opportunity to work autonomously. During the COVID lockdowns, many of us got very used to working our own way. We often also had the opportunity to fit in more time with our families, on hobbies and just generally looking after ourselves. Now, as things return to normal, it can be a difficult thing to go back to the feeling that we always need to be in the office.

By continuing to offer some degree of flexible working even after COVID, your workplace could continue to appeal to employees even without a pay rise – especially if competitors aren’t doing the same.

Providing recognition

One of the main things employees want out of their work is the recognition for a job well done or at least the feeling that they’re not being taken for granted.  Too many employers forget this and expect their employees to keep working their best and remaining loyal, without ever letting them know how much they mean.

Don’t fall into this boat. Make sure you tell your staff how much you value them even if you can’t afford to pay more. Throw after work drinks or regular dinners to celebrate their achievements and acknowledge how they contribute.

Career mapping

While some employees are tempted to move by a short-term windfall, many look to the longer term. If you can offer a genuine and fulfilling career path, they’ll have much more incentive to stay with you. This could be a good time to sit down with the staff you want to keep to find out exactly what they want from their careers and how you can help facilitate it. By following through, you’ll be giving them more reason to stay than just pay.

Know where you stand

Finally, before you say no to a pay rise, you need to do your homework and find out exactly where you stand. If your employees are covered by Awards or Agreements and these provide for a pay increase, you may have no option but to pay more.

You should also review your bottom line, to work out how much is coming in and what’s going out. If you find that you need to increase pay, it may be time to increase your prices…

Want more?

If you’d like to know more about how to get non-financial benefits work for your business, get in touch.

Thinking of selling your business? Your Human Resources (HR) policies, processes and practices are all likely to have an impact on the price you receive. 

We explore what you need to do to get your business HR ready for sale so that you secure top dollar when it comes time to sell.  

1. Have the right HR policies in place

First and foremost, any potential buyer will usually want to know how your business functions from an HR perspective. Even more importantly, that your HR policies will continue to function when the buyer takes over. They’ll also want to know that you have established HR customs and procedures that don’t conflict too much with their own. 

This means always taking the time to document and write down your HR policies and procedures before your business goes to market. This means everything from employee leave and flexible working hours through to termination and redundancy.

2. Understand your HR liabilities

The other key concern most buyers will have is your HR liabilities. They’ll usually go through a due diligence process to uncover these (or at least their lawyers will). When they do, they’ll notice things like “golden parachutes” for managers, massive redundancy entitlements, large looming bonuses and, most importantly, excessive leave liabilities. 

To get the best price, you’ll need to keep these to a minimum. If a member of staff has accrued more than eight weeks’ annual leave, you may be within your rights to ask them to use some of it. You should also be prudent when it comes to agreeing on severance terms with senior staff.  

3. Do what you can to retain key staff

One of the most challenging things to do will be convincing your employees to stay on after the sale. Some buyers will stipulate as a condition of sale that your key employees stay. This is especially true of any businesses that rely specifically on the skill of the staff to make money (ie professional services), as well as for relationships-based businesses. 

Key employee retention is also important when the sale doesn’t involve a merger or acquisition by a similar business. That’s because the buyer won’t have existing employees to take over that workload.  

Losing key staff in the run-up to a sale is also likely to diminish your business’s value. Reassuring them about their value is obviously a start, but sometimes it takes offering them incentives for them to stay. You may find you need to offer loyalty bonuses in this regard.

4. Keep up employee morale

A buyer is able to see a workplace with poor employee morale or a toxic workplace culture. They will notice workers who are disengaged and productivity that is slipping. To get the best value of your sale, you need to prevent this from happening. That involves communication.

It’s only natural employees will be worried, and let’s face it, perhaps some staff have every right to be. But you also need to let employees know the positives that new owners will bring. Will there be increased opportunities? A new direction? The chance to play out on a bigger stage? Just be sure that you’re realistic about what the future brings as promising the world is likely to have the reverse effect.

Also, keep your door open and let people come to you with their fears. Staying open and honest is vital. 

5. Make sure you’re compliant

Finally, one of the main HR-related exposures any business buyer can face is inheriting non-compliance with a law, regulation, award or agreement. Here, it’s your responsibility to make sure the buyer won’t uncover any major surprises in their due diligence. 

The way to do that is to audit your HR policies and practices. You need to find out where your exposures lie. Then you can make them right and make an educated decision on how to best approach things. 

Uncovering a major breach of law can make a buyer nervous and leave them wondering what other exposures they may be facing. 

Are your HR policies ready for sale?

Selling a business can be a long and drawn-out process. Any serious buyer is going to take time going through every detail to make certain they know what they’re buying. By identifying and correcting any HR-related issues, you’ll be in a much stronger negotiating position and more likely to get the best price. 

If you’d like to get your business and HR policies ready for sale, speak to the Catalina Consultants team.