‘I am so proud that we’re doing more than the bare minimum’ for carers, says Virgin Media O2

£11 billion-revenue British media and telecoms giant Virgin Media O2 is completely bought into the business rationale of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB).

In an exclusive interview with UNLEASH, Nisha Marwaha, Virgin Media O2’s Director of People Relations and DE&I, shares that the company’s focus on DEIB is about the “emotional connection we’re trying to make with our employees” – “they feel connected to us and want to…stay here, thrive here, grow here”.

To this end, Virgin Media O2 has done a lot of work over the last few years (in partnership with Tidal Equality’s Equity Sequence tool) to create an all-encompassing DEIB strategy, called ‘All In’.

It involves ambitious targets around gender parity and better representation of ethnic minorities (particularly at leadership level), as well as extremely progressive, best-in-class benefits.

Examples include funding gender transition for transgender and non-binary employees, 12 weeks of paid neonatal leave, and 14 weeks of paid paternity leave.

Another standout policy is five days of paid leave for carers.

Virgin Media O2 implemented this benefit in 2022, meaning the telecoms giant was far ahead of UK legislation, which, as of April 2024, now mandates five days of unpaid leave per year for carers.

Just a few months after the UK Bill became law, and two years after Virgin Media O2 introduced this gold-standard support for employees who are also unpaid carers for their loved ones, UNLEASH decided to dig in deeper into the implementation of the policy, and its impact to date with Marwaha.

I am so supportive of the unpaid leave entitlement that the UK government is mandating”, but “I am so proud that we’re doing more than the bare minimum,” Marwaha adds.

We also sat down with Luke Stallard, Head of Corporate Communications at the telecoms giants, who just last year became a carer for his wife.

A deep dive into Virgin Media O2 and paid carers leave

In deciding to take action for carers leave, Virgin Media O2 started by “listening to what our people wanted”. This work led the telecoms giant to figure out that one in five of their employees were unpaid carers.

The HR team collaborated with its Employee Resource Group for unpaid carers, We Care, and asked them for their advice on what additional support they need to balance their job and caring responsibilities.

Virgin Media O2 then spoke to Carers UK to develop their specific policy – “they told us that paid leave is the gold standard – this does actually make a huge difference”. People often can’t afford to take unpaid leave and, frankly, they shouldn’t have to use their holidays to look after their loved ones.

So, given the difference that paid leave makes, Marwaha and the HR team decided to look at it in detail, and settled on five days through a consultation with We Care and other Employee Resource Groups, as well as Carers UK.

Importantly, the leave can be taken in flexibly in half-day increments – this decision was the outcome of employee feedback.

Plus, the leave can be cancelled and changed at the last minute, and it explicitly shows up on the HR system as carers leave, which removes any “anxiety that it is going to come out of [people’s] holiday allowance or that you won’t be paid”, adds Marwaha.

Since the program was launched two years ago, 1,300 paid carers leave days have been taken by Virgin Media O2’s 18,000 employees.

While the employer doesn’t track what people use this paid leave for, feedback shows that it allowed them to attend (and be fully present) at hospital appointments, as well as be able to take their loved ones on holidays with additional support.

Virgin Media O2’s Head of Corporate Communications Luke Stallard and his wife.

Speaking exclusively to UNLEASH about his experience of becoming a carer last October, Stallard shares that his wife was diagnosed out of the blue with lymphoma – “we were very quickly catapulted into the world of a lot of treatment, of her being unwell, and a big caring responsibility on me”.

This wasn’t something Stallard expected at this point in his life; he was now having to juggle looking after his wife, looking after his two young children (and trying to keep their lives as normal as possible), and looking after himself.

For Stallard, the leave policy has made “an enormous difference” – “you are naturally dealing with an awful lot of stress and anxiety, so just the fact there is a policy means it is so much easy to have the conversation” with your manager and team.

Marwaha echoes this. The policy is like a “symbol” that Virgin Media O2 as an employer “will support people if this happens to them”.

Plus, “it made a huge difference in terms of me feeling I could show up [for] my kids when they really needed stability”, adds Stallard.

It also removed financial stress – “you’ve got enough on your plate; you don’t want to have to worry about money alongside all of it”.

Beyond carers leave

Clearly, paid leave is super useful for carers.

“We are in a good position to be able to offer paid leave, not every organization will be able to,” notes Marwaha.

“If you can pay for [paid leave], then the anecdotal feedback is showing us that it makes a difference”.

If you can’t offer paid leave or want to take a different approach to looking after your employees, Virgin Media O2’s Marwaha has some advice.

First, “find out if there are any unpaid carers in your organization”, and then “connect with your employee base to find out what is the best support” for them. Set up an Employee Resource Group if you don’t already have one.

“That’s how we ended up with paid leave – it could have been something completely different”, notes Marwaha.

Nisha Marwaha, Director of People Relations and DE&I, Virgin Media O2.

Carers UK talked about flexibility working as being super helpful as well – this is something that Virgin Media O2 offers all of its employees.

The telecoms giant is a hybrid-first organization, and it empowers each time to decide what is ‘Me Time’ (stuff that can be done from anywhere) and ‘We Time’ (purposeful time spent together in person), and determine their working location based on that.

Virgin Media O2 has also launched ‘Adjustment Passports’ – these sit within its HR systems.

So, “if you have caring responsibilities, you can log it on the system, and it’ll follow you around if you move roles. This means you don’t have to keep having the same conversation”, explains Marwaha.

She adds that the telecoms giant further offers carers (and all employees) with emotional support through its medical partners – the support that people need is individual, “for some of our people, they do need more emotional support”.

Reflecting on the last seven months as a carer, Stallard shares that “whenever people ask me how things are, they ask about work, [and] I only ever have positive things to say”.

“The paid leave is absolutely part of it – that has been brilliant – but, to me, it’s beyond that as well. It’s the culture, it’s flexible working, it’s the ability to make and break plans.

“I’ve never felt in a position where I couldn’t show up how I wanted to for my wife, for my kids. I am just really grateful I’ve had that support.”

His message to HR leaders and organizations is that “it could happen to any of us – it was a huge shock when my wife was diagnosed completely out of the blue”.

So, the key is to think “about the support that you would want to have in place” if you were suddenly grappling with being a carer.

The future of inclusion at Virgin Media O2

The conversation turned towards Virgin Media O2’s general DEIB commitments, and what is next on Marwaha and her team’s agenda.

They’re hyper focused on the inclusion element of DEIB, aka really making sure that the working environment is truly inclusive, that people feel valued and welcome, and, as a result, people can bring their whole selves to work.

“We really want to evolve our benefit offerings – it’s something that we talk about every year. We want to keep building, we want to keep moving forward with the momentum,” notes Marwaha.

Top of mind is neurodiversity, accessibility, and anti-racism, as well as “upskilling our leadership population” on ‘All In’ programs.

“We’re working with our networks to continue to raise awareness about how managers can support their employees, what offerings we currently and what we are thinking about for the future.”

Stay tuned.