Lion Announces New Inclusion And Diversity Support Measures Including Gender Affirmation Leave

The improvements include new types of paid leave options and updated people policies to better reflect the Lion workforce and their needs.

What you need to know

  • Lion has expanded its Families@Lion policy to include 12 weeks paid leave for stillbirth and 10 days for miscarriage.
  • Lion will also introduce 10 days paid leave for domestic violence victims and gender affirmation leave.
  • Further policies have been changed to reflect kinship for First Nations and added extra bereavement leave for Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, Māori, and Pasifika team members.

Lion has today announced several improvements to its existing Inclusion and Diversity framework, adding new types of paid leave options available to its people, and updating its people policies more broadly to better reflect its workforce and their needs.

Lion’s families policy, Families@Lion will now include 12 weeks of paid leave for those who experience the devastating loss of a child by stillbirth, and 10 days of paid leave for women who suffer miscarriage.

This evolution of the Families@Lion policy follows the announcement of Lion as a Family Friendly Workplace – the first major brewer in Australia to receive this recognition.

An additional three days of bereavement leave will also be offered for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, Maori and Pasifika team members, and the definition of family will be amended in all Lion’s people policies to include the concept of kinship, recognising the definition of family is more extensive for First Nations and Clan groups.

Lion will also introduce 10 days of paid leave for victims and family members of victims of domestic and family violence, and 10 days of paid gender affirmation leave.

People & Culture Director Alicia Purtell said Lion was focused on continuous improvement in this space.

“We can’t afford to simply set and forget when it comes to these policies."

Alicia Purtell, People & Culture Director at Lion

“That is why we have taken the opportunity to look holistically at the support we provide our people in addition to our Families@Lion policy and identified a number of areas in which we can bolster our commitment to inclusion and diversity.

“It is absolutely vital that we recognise that having a genuinely inclusive culture depends on us considering the needs of our people from all different perspectives – whether that is their gender, sexuality, culture, religion, or family situation.”