Page 78 - AdNews magazine Mar-Apr-May 2023

Initiative
EMPLOYER OF THE YEAR (HEADCOUNT OVER 75) WINNER
Media agency Initiative won The Employer of the Year Award for its parental strategies.
The judges said: “Initiative stood out for the strength of its parental strategy, including initia- tives such as family planning ben- efits, extending parental-leave, new-parent learning and extend- ing superannuation.”
Initiative said: “As we rise out of lockdowns and chaos, we made it our mission to give people an undeniable purpose to get behind.
“Galvanising our people by giv- ing them not just the permission, but responsibility to affect change. Led by our three bold behaviours under The Year of the Phoenix, we gave rise to our best year yet.”
Choosing between family and career is a reality.
“Initiative supported employ- ees wishing to start or grow their families, offering $7,500 in family planning benefits, for singles, cou- ples and (inc. LGBTQIA+) for egg freezing, and IVF.
“We also combatted the fear of lost progression during paren- tal-leave by creating a world-first program funding accredited learn- ing for new-parents to build their CV on parental leave; open to all primary carers and 100% opt-in.
“This is on top of extending superannuation to cover the entirety of the un-paid portion of parental leave, and extending aggrievement leave so that pri- mary carers who suffer a loss under 20 weeks receive up-to-8 weeks of paid leave, and those over 20 weeks receive their full paren- tal carers leave.”
As a result, 96% of Initiative staff feels “I’m not forced to choose between my work and my life”.
As others complain about young people getting promoted too early and paid too much, Initiative implemented an extraordinary personalised career acceleration program for 100% of its employees.
As a result, the agency reduced its churn by 30% since its introduc- tion, promoted a whopping 46% of staff, and became a #1 agency for “I feel adequately remunerated for my role” according to a staff sur- vey since its introduction. Successfully fighting against this year’s brutal talent war.
The personalised career accel- eration programs focused on long term career aspirations, not just for the year ahead but looked at
The Initiative team at the awards.