A senior banker in London undergoing fertility treatment wanted to keep it under the radar because she felt her employer would not be supportive.
In the event, the bank found out by accident, after a hospital sicknote mentioned complications due to IVF. When the woman returned to work, she was told she was being moved abroad and that if she went ahead with the implantation, she could be sacked.
“They called her in and said you can either have a baby or move abroad,” said Nickie Aiken, a former Tory MP. “She left the bank in the end, but she felt bad about it and did not want other people to suffer this.”
Prompted by her constituent’s story, Aiken introduced a private member’s bill in 2022 which would have given individuals and couples the right to take paid time off for fertility treatment, but the proposal faltered. She now hopes the new government will take up the issue. “It is key for retention and recruitment. It also sends a clear message about the ethos of the company,” she said.
Now a growing number of businesses are realising the same thing, with some offering paid leave and financial support of up to £50,000.
Apple and Facebook were early advocates and began offering to pay for egg freezing for staff in 2014, as a way of helping retain female workers. City firms in the UK soon followed suit.
The international law firm Cooley now offers fertility benefits of up to £45,000, including IVF, adoption services and egg freezing, and in 2019 Goldman Sachs announced its “pathways to parenthood” scheme, which offers up to $20,000 to cover the cost of extracting eggs.
This year, the British brewer Greene King launched a fertility and IVF policy covering its 40,000-strong workforce, allowing employees up to five days’ additional paid leave to attend appointments for each treatment cycle, for up to three treatments. In 2022, the Co-operative Group, which employs nearly 70,000 people, also introduced paid leave for fertility treatments.
Eileen Burbidge, founder of Fertifa, which provides reproductive health benefits schemes to businesses, says it is fast becoming an important issue for employers. She says the number of Fertifa’s clients has quadrupled since the start of 2022, with companies offering benefits ranging from wellbeing support and paid leave to financing fertility treatment. Companies pay from £250 per employee per year for a lifetime allowance of up to £50,000 – with an average allowance between £10,000 to £20,000, she said.
“We have seen a shift over the last few years,” Burbidge said. “For example, in 2022 most companies were curious to learn what competitors and peers were doing. At that time, I think many HR executives were simply building a case internally because employees were starting to ask about it. Since 2023, curiosity and fact-finding has moved towards action and introducing the benefits.”
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) found last year that just 27% of employers had a fertility treatment policy, and that 19% of staff had considered leaving their job while experiencing fertility challenges.
That is slowly changing. Natalie Sutherland, a partner at law firm Burgess Mee, is the co-host and co-founder of In/Fertility in the City, a live events series and podcast. She was appointed the law firm’s first fertility officer in 2021.
“Many women feel it is career suicide to discuss trying for a child, and don’t talk about it if they have a miscarriage,” she said. “If you have a high-stress job, it helps to know even beforehand there will be support.”
Becky Kearns, chief executive of Fertility Matters at Work, an organisation which helps employers to become fertility-friendly, said: “There is no statutory right for time off for fertility treatment and we hear some awful stories from people who have had no choice but to leave their jobs, with many feeling unable to tell their employer.”
Labour’s manifesto promised to strengthen protection from maternity and menopause discrimination in forthcoming employment rights legislation, but has not mentioned paid leave for fertility treatment.
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The Department for Business and Trade said: “We welcome companies choosing to offer improved wider benefits to their staff as part of their contract. We are delivering an ambitious agenda to ensure workplace rights fit for a modern economy. Our upcoming employment rights bill will be key to our mission to ‘make work pay’.”
Employers’ change in attitude comes amid declining birthrates worldwide and at a time when IVF provision on the NHS has been sharply reduced. Only one in four (27%) of cycles of IVF during 2022 were paid for by the health service, according to the latest annual report by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which regulates fertility treatment.
Data from firms that have introduced paid leave for fertility appointments suggests it is unlikely to create a significant burden. Cadent Gas, the gas distribution company, which has 6,000 employees, introduced the measure in October 2022 and so far has recorded fewer than 50 days of paid leave attributed to fertility treatment.
When Big Tech introduced egg-freezing benefits in 2014, there was a backlash from critics, who argued the policy sent the wrong message to women and encouraged them to delay parenthood.
But Burbidge believes the debate has moved on. “At that time, there was a false narrative that companies were supporting such treatments as pressure for [women] to work more and delay parenthood,” she said. “This is clearly not why women seek the benefit and was an unhelpful narrative. In fact, women overwhelmingly choose egg freezing because they’ve yet to find a life partner.”
Some argue that such policies still do not prevent discrimination against women returning from maternity leave.
Joeli Brearley, chief executive of Pregnant Then Screwed, a maternity rights charity, said: “Fertility treatment is a great perk on paper; but as with all workplace policies, without genuine buy-in from managers, they don’t necessarily translate to good practice.
“We know that women are judged as distracted and less committed to their job from the point they get pregnant, and the majority experience some form of discrimination, including sackings, redundancy, being sidelined, demoted, bullied or harassed. Offering the treatment does not directly deal with the intrinsic bias many employers hold towards pregnant women and new mothers.”
