Tesco has granted colleagues who have a Special Guardianship Order to care for relatives’ children equal rights to colleagues who adopt – giving them both 26 weeks leave on full pay.
The kinship leave, which will apply to grandparents or other relatives who take on a child of a family member, is intended to help kinship carers stay in the workforce while managing extra responsibilities.
The new policy comes as Tesco has unveiled additional benefits for over 300,000 colleagues from this week, including improved maternity leave to 26 weeks with full pay and up to 12 weeks paid neonatal leave.
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The leading retailer will also be extending fertility leave to partners as well as birth mothers of up to five days paid leave per treatment cycle, improved adoption leave to 26 weeks on full pay and paid leave for two weeks for the loss of a baby pre-24 weeks of pregnancy.
The kinship leave has been supported by care charity Kinship who said there are 152,000 children in the UK growing up in kinship care, estimating that hundreds of these carers work for Tesco.
The policy will apply to Tesco colleagues who have obtained an SGO from a family court, which allows a child to be brought up by people such as grandparents, relatives or family friends while maintaining contact with birth parents.
Tesco UK people director, James Goodman, said: “We have been really focused on our colleagues’ wellbeing this summer. As well as improving maternity leave for thousands of colleagues, we have introduced a raft of new benefits to help colleagues strike a healthy work-life balance.
“Relatives who take on the care of a child often feel forced to reduce their hours or even leave their jobs as they try to juggle extra responsibilities, and we wanted to step up to offer kinship carers the same support as colleagues who adopt a child.”
