Case study: Parental pay and benefits in a large real estate company

This case study supplements the broader REBA Acumen Staying ahead: Parental leave, pay and benefits report (November 2025) by providing a real-world perspective from the Head of Reward at a large real estate company.

It explores how the company has embedded family values into its reward strategy, creating an inclusive and progressive pay and benefits strategy that reflects the diverse needs of modern families. It also highlights how the organisation designs, implements and evolves policies that support all types of parents while balancing cost, culture and compliance

What is the business rationale behind the parental leave offering?

The business tries to do as much as is physically possible in this area. We’re not claiming to be the best in everything, but we believe we’re highly competitive in our sector.

We’re always trying to keep a broad perspective so benefits apply to as many people as possible any kind of parent: adoption, surrogacy, miscarriage and bereavement, plus family coaching for mothers and fathers.

On the commercial side we believe the parental benefits offering is important for attracting talent and retaining talent. But it’s also because the business believes it’s the right thing to do, professionally and personally.

As a family business, we want to keep that family feel, which is getting harder to do because of the amount of regulations and compliance involved. The support for parents and family life is one way we can try to marry the two together, we can do what’s needed legally and also go above and beyond to try and support individuals.

What parental benefits or enhancements do you plan to offer in future and why?

We’re reviewing policies all the time. We’ll try and understand what competitors are offering as it’s the sensible thing to do. We’re not concerned by what will be in the Employment Rights Bill as we’re confident that the organisation is already offering what will be expected in future.

Rather than adding to the offer, we’ll be looking at how to make sure there’s support for as many people as possible, not just new parents. Not everyone will be a parent for example, but everyone will be a carer in one way or another, for children or their parents and other family.

It’s just human nature that some employees will say ‘what about’ this and that, we’re not perfect. One of our challenges is around the childcare offer and getting people to understand what’s physically possible because the buildings we have don’t allow for the kind of on-site creche provision that some people would like.

We’d looked into the childcare partnership schemes and knew it wasn’t for us, which was before the recent HMRC clampdown on what they’re seeing as non-compliant provision. So we didn’t fall into that trap. We try to avoid going too far down any one particular ‘rabbit hole’ of the latest thing in benefits, and kept the offering as broadly relevant to as many employees as possible.

Equalising the offering, ie giving six months paternity leave, isn’t something the business could support at this stage. There’s the shared parental leave option (and we do have some couples who both work for us).

How are you providing the business case for these parental benefit offerings?

We monitor competitor offerings as context for what’s recommended. Generally we don’t have any problems with getting proposals for rewards and benefits through the business, which isn’t always the case in some organisations where it’s all about having a strong business case first.

We’ve not needed it, as the senior management team just tend to ‘get’ the need for enhanced offerings in this kind of area as a way of demonstrating the kind of employer we are. If there’s an issue, it’s often found lower down in the hierarchy, which is understandable given it’s the team managers who have to deal with the challenges of having people on leave for weeks or months, coming back, and then maybe going on leave again.

What are the next challenges and opportunities in terms of parental leave, pay and benefits?

We’re not expecting any problems resulting from the Employment Rights Bill because of the current offer already in place. The bigger challenge is the ongoing debate and demands around flexibility, what it is, and how it best works.

The Covid period seemed to demonstrate that working from home was viable, but some roles are impossible to do from home, others are more effective when people are among colleagues. It’s also not so easy for younger people entering the business who don’t have that background of experience. We need to find the right balance of flexibility, particularly for parents and carers.

The organisation has a range of employee networks, including those for families and carers, and these are an important way of getting feedback on needs and what they expect, and increased engagement here will be an opportunity to refine the offerings.