Today’s fathers are willing to do more and more child-related chores they hadn’t contributed to before. At the same time, they are increasingly aware of how important it is to spend a sufficient quantity of quality time with their child.
For this reason, Telenor is introducing a new employee benefit for Fathers’ Day. After the birth of a child, every father can use 4 weeks of paid paternity leave in addition to the 5 days already provided under law. This option is available also to mothers if it is the father who goes on state maternity leave after a child is born.
“Being a practicing father myself, I know that the birth of a child is a once-in-a-lifetime event when it is especially important for the family to spend more time together. I was pleased to use this opportunity myself and I’m proud to add this new benefit to our family-friendly measures to support employees from 1 July”, said Peter Gažik, CEO of Telenor Hungary.
The paid leave is available also to single parents – if they are not on state maternity leave – and it is also available after adopted children. The announcement is in line with Telenor’s other efforts in recent years to improve the well-being and work-life balance of employees.
“Telenor is committed to gender equality. For this reason, we have joined the ‘Common Interest’ campaign of WeAreOpen. Realizing that women took the lion’s share of increased household work during the COVID pandemic, we want to ensure that men can spend more quality time at home and connect better to their families. We believe that true gender equality can be established by men and women together. In addition, parenting competencies can be efficiently used later also in the working environment”, said Judit Endrei-Kiss, Chief HR Officer of Telenor.
Fathers’ Day: emphasis on spending time together
Strengthening the father-child relationship is important not only in the first four weeks after childbirth. Based on a recent survey conducted by Telenor*, fathers typically play a minor role in keeping in touch with the family or resolving issues requiring in-depth conversation. Survey participants meet their father most often in person (46%) or they talk on the phone (43%). But only 3% consult their father in personal issues for which their mother and partner are the preferred choice. A different survey** revealed that only one in ten women turn to their father if they need support, advice or inspiration.
“It is still a common belief that fathers are the breadwinners of the family and mothers have to look after the children. This is the reason behind the stereotype that you can rely on fathers only in specific tasks, but if you want to have a good conversation or need emotional support, you should rather turn to your mother or friends”, interpreted the survey results psychologist Dávid Szél, author of Apapara blog.
Fathers’ Day surprise for Telenor customers
Telenor helps customers deepen the father-child relationship with a special Fathers’ Day discount. Similarly to the Mothers’ Day campaign, Telenor now gives 60 minutes of free domestic airtime to every prepaid and postpaid consumer and consumer with a fleet tariff plan on 20 June, Sunday, Father’s Day. The discount can be activated in the MyTelenor app between 14 June and 20 June, midnight.
In addition, the afternoon before, on 19 June, during the Hungary-France game of the European Football Championship (between 2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m., Saturday) every prepaid or postpaid domestic consumer and consumers with a fleet voice tariff plan and a mobile internet subscription can use data free of charge. This discount can also be activated in the app, from 15 June until the end of the free data period.
The discounts can be activated in the Services menu item of the MyTelenor app: https://mobile.telenor.hu/apaknapi_ajandek
-------
*The survey was conducted on Ipsos Instant Research’s platform between 16 and 21 April 2021, on a sample of 840 Internet users aged 18 to 55.
** The survey was conducted on Ipsos Instant Research’s platform between 24 February and 1 March 2021, on a sample of 840 women aged 18 to 65.