Support new mothers to protect career continuity

Submitted through the COP31 Sustainable Transformation Awards · SKD Türkiye (WBCSD Global Network Partner)

Siemens Sanayi ve Ticaret A.Ş. is the Turkish organisation of an industrial technology group, employing more than 1,000 people across manufacturing, engineering and commercial functions.

Parenthood is the point at which women most often leave technical and industrial workforces. Statutory entitlements cover the period of leave itself, but they do not cover the transition around it: the weeks immediately after birth, the return to work, the cost of childcare, or the practical questions that arise between the two. Where that transition is unsupported, the result is resignation, reduced hours or a career that stalls at the point of return.

The response, launched in 2014, treats motherhood as an employee experience to be designed rather than a legal obligation to be discharged. The programme covers the physical, psychological, social and economic dimensions of the period from pregnancy through to the return to work, and it is positioned internally as an investment in retention and inclusion rather than as a welfare benefit.

As of 2026 there are 226 mothers employed in the Turkish organisation, which is the population the programme is designed to hold in work.

Location of the initiative: Türkiye, company-wide across all sites and affiliated group companies

The model has two halves that are managed as one framework: entitlements that already existed but were dispersed, and specialist services that did not exist at all.

The first half makes existing rights visible and easy to claim. Maternity and unpaid leave, nursing leave, pregnancy leave, mother rooms at the sites, leave for the first and last day of the school year, childcare funding and private health insurance covering childbirth are presented under a single heading with a single access route, so that an employee does not have to know which policy governs which entitlement.

The second half adds professional support that statutory provision does not reach. Employees have 24/7 access to specialists through a digital wellbeing platform, delivered by one provider until the end of 2025 and by a second from 1 January 2026. The services cover newborn care advice, breastfeeding and parenting counselling, psychological counselling, child development, dietetics, physiotherapy, general practice and family counselling.

The part of the design that changes outcomes rather than perceptions is proactive contact. Rather than waiting for an employee to ask, the programme schedules regular follow-up conversations through the first three months after birth, which is when needs change fastest and when problems are cheapest to solve.

Childcare funding of approximately TRY 12,000 a month addresses the economic barrier directly, because the cost of care, not the availability of leave, is what commonly makes returning to work uneconomic for a second earner.

Because the specialist services are delivered digitally, access does not depend on being based at a large site, and the model has been extended to group companies and to outsourced workers rather than being confined to one legal entity.

The motherhood support pathway, from pregnancy and preparation for birth through maternity leave and the first three months after birth to return to work and continued childcare support.

Figure 1: Motherhood support pathway

Programme reach in 2026: 226 mothers employed and covered by the programme, and childcare support uptake rising from 38 to 43 employees between 2025 and 2026.

Figure 2: Programme reach and childcare support uptake

Sustainability impact

Climate

The initiative does not target greenhouse gas emissions. It changes neither the Scope 1 emissions of the company's manufacturing and engineering operations nor the Scope 2 emissions of the electricity purchased for its sites, and no value chain emission reduction is claimed for the programme, which has run since 2014.

One indirect effect sits in the delivery model rather than in the outcome. The specialist services are provided through a digital wellbeing platform available around the clock, so employees at small and dispersed sites are reached without on-site provision and without travelling to a provider, and support arrives at home and outside working hours. That is a consequence of the delivery choice rather than a purpose of the programme, and it is not measured. Quantifying it would require travel distance and transport mode data that the company does not hold, and user-level information is not accessible under confidentiality requirements.

The sustainability impact of the initiative is social and is reported under Social impact below.

Social

The programme is a social intervention and its results are social. As of 2026 the Turkish organisation employs 226 mothers, and the programme is designed to keep that population in work through the period when attrition is highest.

Use of the childcare benefit rose from 38 to 43 employees in a single year, which is the clearest available signal that the support mechanisms became easier to find and to claim. Pregnancy leave and nursing leave use are tracked over the same period and inform adjustments to the offer.

Access to specialist health and parenting support is the second dimension. Round-the-clock access to psychological, parenting, breastfeeding, child development, dietetic, physiotherapy and general practice services reaches employees at home and outside working hours, which is where the demand actually falls, and the scheduled follow-up through the first three months after birth converts availability into use.

Seminars delivered with academics, physicians, psychologists and ergonomists extend the same content to a wider employee audience on parenting, child development, psychological resilience, work-life balance, ergonomics and healthy living.

Satisfaction among mothers is reported as high, and open-ended feedback from two employee engagement surveys a year, together with pulse surveys on the internal social platform, is used to revise the content. The company's sustainability impact white paper documents the wider employee experience approach that the programme sits within.

The reach is not confined to one employer. The same support has been extended to group companies operating in energy, healthcare technology, financial services, mobility, wind power, motors and drives, transformers and energy services, and to outsourced workers, and the model is promoted to subcontracting firms as a reference.

Business impact

Benefits

The commercial return is retention. Replacing an experienced engineer or specialist carries recruitment, onboarding and lost-productivity cost, and the period around childbirth is when that risk concentrates. Support that removes the practical and financial obstacles to returning converts a probable exit into a continued career.

Career continuity also protects the pipeline for senior and technical roles. Women who leave at parenthood do not appear in succession planning five years later, so the effect of the programme compounds well beyond the year in which the support is given.

Rising use of the entitlements, from 38 to 43 employees taking childcare support in one year, indicates that benefits already being paid for are actually being consumed, which improves the return on the existing benefits budget rather than adding to it.

Engagement and employer attractiveness are the third benefit. Results are visible in the twice-yearly engagement surveys and in the pulse surveys, and the programme is presented regularly at cross-sector human resources platforms and events attended by other large employers, which supports recruitment.

Applying the same framework across group companies and outsourced workers removes the internal inconsistency that otherwise creates grievance between populations working on the same site.

Costs

The cost base has four recurring components: the childcare allowance of approximately TRY 12,000 a month for each employee using it; the subscription to the digital wellbeing platform that provides 24/7 specialist access; private health insurance premiums that include childbirth cover; and the fit-out and upkeep of mother rooms at the sites, together with the administrative time of the People and Organisation teams.

The allowance is the largest and the most exposed item, because its real value erodes with inflation. It is reviewed against economic conditions rather than fixed, which protects the benefit but makes the cost line variable and requires an annual budget decision.

Costs are contained in three ways. Specialist services are contracted once and delivered digitally, so a site does not need its own provider and small locations are covered at the same unit cost as large ones. The entitlements are folded into the existing benefits and insurance structures rather than run as a separate scheme. Extending the same contract across group companies and outsourced workers spreads the fixed platform cost over a larger population.

The dependencies are corporate budget continuity, the availability of a provider able to deliver the full range of specialisms round the clock, and legal and regulatory compliance in the administration of leave and insurance. The change of platform provider between 2025 and 2026 shows that provider substitution is possible, but it requires the service specification to be defined independently of any one supplier.

Impact beyond sustainability and business

Co-benefits

Families, not only employees, receive the benefit. Parenting, child development and health counselling reaches households directly, and the seminar programme adds general health and ergonomics literacy that carries over into non-work life.

The approach is aligned with a group-level employee support policy that reaches approximately 320,000 employees globally, covering 100 per cent of the group's workforce, so the Turkish programme is a local specification of an existing corporate commitment rather than an isolated initiative.

Extending the framework to outsourced workers and promoting it to subcontracting firms moves the standard into the supply chain, where parental support is normally weakest and where the employees concerned have least bargaining power.

Potential side-effects

Three risks are managed explicitly: equality of access across sites and job types, use of the entitlements for their intended purpose, and consistency of application between managers. These are handled through regular monitoring and transparent control of claims, because a benefit administered inconsistently creates more grievance than it resolves.

The childcare allowance carries an inflation exposure. If the amount is not reviewed, its real value falls and the barrier it was designed to remove returns without anyone deciding to reinstate it.

There is also a design trade-off in framing support around mothers. Support concentrated on one parent can reinforce the assumption that care is a maternal responsibility, and the effect on women's careers is only fully removed when equivalent entitlements are available to fathers and other carers.

Finally, the model depends on an external specialist platform. That keeps quality high and cost predictable, but it places a sensitive service, including psychological counselling, outside the company, which requires confidentiality arrangements to be specified in the contract rather than assumed.

Typical business profile

The model suits employers with more than 1,000 staff that combine production, engineering and commercial populations across several locations, where women are under-represented in technical roles and where attrition concentrates around parenthood.

It is most relevant to organisations that already provide statutory entitlements but have them dispersed across separate policies, insurance contracts and site practices, because the first stage of the work is consolidation rather than new spending.

Delivery is led by the People and Organisation function, working with health and safety, benefits process owners, finance for the budget line, and employee networks for the feedback loop. Digital delivery of the specialist services means the model also fits organisations with small or dispersed sites that could not support on-site provision.

Approach

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Stakeholders involved

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Key parameters to consider

The programme has run since 2014 and is a standing structure rather than a project, so its cost is an annual budget line and its content changes each year in response to use data.

Measurement is annual and rests on five indicators: 1. the number of mothers employed and the reach of the programme; 2. the number of employees using the childcare service; 3. use of pregnancy leave; 4. use of nursing leave; 5. survey scores and open-ended feedback. Data comes from service use records, benefits statistics, two employee engagement surveys a year and pulse surveys on the internal social platform.

Continuity is secured through the corporate budget, policy updates and regulatory compliance work. Childcare allowance limits are reviewed against economic conditions, insurance policies with childbirth cover are renewed, and the maintenance of the mother rooms is tracked as a facilities item.

The specialist service provider changed between 2025 and 2026, which sets a practical constraint: the service specification has to be written so that a change of supplier does not interrupt continuity of care for employees already in a counselling relationship.

Implementation and operations tips

Consolidation delivers more than new spending in the first year. Most of the entitlements already existed; the improvement came from making them findable and claimable under one heading, which costs administrative effort rather than budget.

Proactive contact is what separates this model from a benefits list. Scheduled follow-up through the first three months after birth reaches the employees least likely to ask for help, which is precisely the group most likely to resign.

Fund the cost of care, not only the time. Leave entitlements address availability; the childcare allowance addresses affordability, and it is affordability that most often decides whether a second earner returns.

Deliver the specialist services digitally if the workforce is dispersed. It equalises access between a large campus and a small office, and it makes extension to group companies and outsourced workers a contractual question rather than a facilities one.

Administer the entitlements transparently. Equality of access, appropriate use and consistency between managers are the three failure modes, and each of them is a monitoring problem rather than a policy problem.

External links

Sustainability reports and figures

Source list

(1) Sustainability impact white paper