Mercedes Benz Financial Services

As the boundary between work and personal life is constantly blurred, employers like Jorgina Sheehy, Head of Human Resources for Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Australia (MBFSAu), recognise the value of supporting their working parents. 

Partnering with Circle In was the obvious approach for MBFSAu. The Parents Portal digital platform is built for round-the-clock employee support and engagement, so employees and their families can get the help they need, when they need it. Jorgina talks through the investment decision.

Tell us about why you saw a need for Circle In?
There are two reasons:

• We are a workforce that mostly are either parents, going to be parents or are grandparents. We wanted to further support our workforce with tools that not only support them in their workplace but also in their personal life. I have watched employees struggle to find balance in their day-to-day lives. Circle In offers support for our parents in a digital way, that is accessible 24 hours a day.
  
  
• As well as this, I feel a huge responsibility in my role to ensure that we support our working parents from when they go on parental leave, to returning, to watching their children grow. As an organisation, we need to invest in this sort of support to further engage and care for our workforce.
  

Building a business case
We felt that this investment would support our WGEA (Workplace Gender Equality Agency) citation application, so we presented this to our local executive committee as a way to further support our working parents as well as support the people that take parental leave.

We have a number of young parents in the executive committee, so after showing them the platform and what was available online, they were sold.

On-boarding and launch experience with Circle In
The onboarding experience was very easy. The Circle In team worked through the process step-by-step with us. The launch (event) was really effective. Having Jodi and Renee present at our monthly Townhall (meeting) was a great way to introduce the Circle In experience to our organisation.

Employee feedback and impact to-date
The reaction has been very positive—there were a number of people from our organisation that thanked us after the launch for providing this benefit.

We have also seen a positive take-up rate for people using the platform. Within a month of launch, a third of our people have registered.

Helpful resources available anytime, anywhere
It is a digital online platform that any employee can access to support them or their family with parental topics.

The importance of investing in working parents
We spend so much time at work, working to support ourselves and our family—why wouldn’t you invest in programs that support working parents?

Finish this sentence: Circle In is…unique, creative and supportive to our workplace.