Saga offers grandparents a week’s paid leave

Saga has become the first UK firm to offer grandparents paid leave to spend time with a new grandchild.

The company, which specialises in products and services for the over-50s, is offering all its 2,500 staff a week’s paid time off to mark the arrival of a grandchild. It will also open its nursery to grandchildren to help staff who are already working grandparents.

Saga research showed that a quarter of working grandparents said they found it “difficult” to balance work with childcare commitments.

People over 50 are the fastest growing demographic in the UK and represent a sizeable share of the working age population. By 2030, 27.9 million people in the UK will be over the age of 50.

And according to government data published in September 2021, 71% of people aged between 50 and 64 are in work.

Academic research first published in the journal Children and society also found that grandparent involvement is strongly associated with child well-being and that grandparents may be under-recognised in the policy agenda.

Justine Roberts, founder of Gransnet, an online community for the over-50s, welcomed the new initiative. “We know from Gransnet users just how important it is that grandparents are able to provide much needed support to exhausted new parents — as well as getting the chance to meet the new arrival,” she said.