Investment bank Goldman Sachs has offered to pay for its breastfeeding staff in the U.S. and U.K. to use a courier service to get their expressed milk back to their babies if traveling for work.
The U.K. Evening Standard newspaper said Monday that an internal memo to staff from the bank noted that “Parenting and work can sometimes feel at odds. Goldman Sachs aim(s) to make the balancing act a little easier,” before explaining that its U.S. offices will deliver freezing kits to nursing employees’ hotel rooms and then courier expressed milk back to the baby for feeding.
Goldman Sachs confirmed the report is correct when contacted by CNBC.
Bank staff based in London, where Goldman employs 6,000 people, will be reimbursed for breast milk delivery costs on work trips.
The newspaper reports that the move shows a change of culture at the bank once reputed to give staff only four hours off for bereavements.
Now, the bank wants to appear more flexible and family friendly. One anonymous female banker at the firm was quoted as saying that women get six months fully-paid maternity leave and are not pressured to return before that. The bank also reportedly offers “lactation rooms” for women to express breast milk and, in its London office, on-site daycare.
The newspaper notes that Goldman is not the first to offer a courier service for expressed milk with IBM, Twitter and Accenture already offering the service to staff.
Read the original story at the Evening Standard website here.
