CA Technologies introduces new parent leave policy worldwide

Recognising that the dynamics of family life are constantly changing and family-friendly benefits provided need to adapt accordingly, CA Technologies has announced a new parent leave policy to promote greater work-life balance for parents, as well as gender diversity across the organisation.

The company will offer all employees globally — male and female — a minimum of 12 weeks paid leave during the first 12 months following the birth or adoption of their child. This benefit provides new parents with financial support and greater choice and flexibility in determining how they want to care for their child during the first 12 months, said the company.

“As part of our continued commitment to employee health and well-being, CA Technologies is pleased to announce the launch of this exciting new parent policy which will enhance our existing portfolio of family friendly benefits,” said Melinda Walsh, VP, People Business Partner, Asia Pacific and Japan, CA Technologies.

Baby wearing a mitten.

“This new parent leave policy will assist to address the challenges faced by working families, providing support and enhancing the overall employee experience. We have a talented team within CA and we know that providing the right level of support during key milestones in their lives will help attract and retain the diverse, experienced workforce we have in Asia Pacific.”

This forward-thinking approach to employee work-life balance will help CA Technologies create a more inclusive culture and position the company as an employer of choice both among existing employees and when attracting new talent. All parents are supported by this policy, making it an attractive option for working mothers and fathers.

The new parent leave policy has already been launched by CA Technologies in the US and will now be rolled out worldwide. All employees will have access to a minimum of 12 weeks paid leave during the first 12 months following the birth or adoption of their child. Employees will be eligible for the new parent leave if they have 12 months of service at the date the child is born, or for adoptive parents where a child is matched or newly placed with them. Employees can opt for a shorter period of leave if they choose, and salaries and benefits will continue to be paid in the normal way.

In today’s digital economy, equality, diversity and inclusion have a vital role to play in business success as it can lead to increased productivity, greater innovation, higher employee retention and better risk management. Based on the 2017 Hays Asia Gender Diversity Report, at least seven in 10 respondents in the region believed that greater gender diversity would improve an organisation’s success. In addition, Asia Pacific companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on their executive teams are more likely to have above-average profitability, according to McKinsey’s The power of parity: Advancing women’s equality in Asia Pacific report.

On a macroeconomic level, the same McKinsey study found that supporting diversity in Asia Pacific could add US$4.5 trillion into the region’s collective annual GDP by 2025, a 12% increase over the business-as-usual trajectory. The economic impact presents a compelling case for driving greater gender diversity.

This new parent leave policy reflects the commitment of CA Technologies towards promoting work-life balance and an inclusive workforce. It is also part of a wider, multi award-winning talent management strategy to ensure the company’s employees have the skills needed for the future of work. These steps include leadership learning and development, unconscious bias training opportunities, targets for improving gender diversity outcomes, flexible working and other programmes to support family responsibilities.

One of the initiatives that CA Technologies has implemented in Asia Pacific requires the talent acquisition team to present at least two women in the shortlisted candidates for at least 75% of all job roles, as well as ensuring a diverse interview selection panel. These guidelines will help the company hire more multicultural women and increase the representation of women in technical roles.

“Despite the exponential change technology is making to society, diversity challenges remain across the technology industry which threatens the opportunity for continued innovation,” said Walsh. “This new parent leave policy is another example of how CA Technologies allows employees to balance their work and personal lives allowing for a diverse culture where ideas are openly shared and respected.”

CA already has family-friendly benefits. Global offerings include:

- Reimbursement for shipment of milk for travelling mothers

- Gift bundles for new babies and pets

= Five days leave for bereavement of immediate family member

- Time to care for a pet upon adoption or to grieve when a pet is lost

The minefield that is password generation

Search for 'password' and 'hieroglyph' on Twitter, and some variation of this joke pops up: "Sorry, your password must contain 1 uppercase letter, a number, a punctuation symbol, a haiku and your first-born". 

It may be taking things too far, but the the joke is barely a joke these days. Everyone understands that strong passwords are a must to prevent hackers from getting hold of your account. Easy passwords such as '123456' or 'password' as your password are typically banned in the corporate world, as are passwords which consist of letters only, or numerals only. 

Despite this, the recently announced Adobe hack has turned up the most common passwords used for Adobe accounts. As reported by Online Computers and Communications, '123456' takes the top spot with 1,911,938 accounts, while 'password' comes in third. Second place was '123456789', with variations of sequential digits in 7th and 11th place as well. The thing is, weak passwords are simply easier to remember.

Software is usually satisfied with a combination of numbers together with letters in both capital and small letters. To make them memorable however, passwords are often based on personal details - I know several moms who have created email addresses combining the names of their kids and their dates of birth, for example, and it seems likely this extends to passwords. Another cop-out is to use easy-to-remember key combinations, such as numbers and letters in straight lines. Unfortunately, these are too easy for the hackers and password cracker software.

In late December 2013, Scientific American wrote about a new way to create strong passwords. Essentially, you combine unlikely images together to create bizarre sentences, such as a cat driving a car, and then use these sentences in some way so as to come up with a password: 'lolspeed80' for example. The images should theoretically stick in your mind because they are so bizarre. And since the images, sentences and passwords derived would be unique to you, such passwords would be pretty hard to guess as well - a win-win.

Unless you forget that bizarre unique password, which is possible if you don't use the password for a long time or have to re-generate new passwords too frequently. Or what if great minds think alike and a cat-lover who drives picks the same two images that you did, derives the same sentence, and generates the same password? 

That's when Microsoft's TelepathWords comes into play. Visit the site and see if the tool can guess your password. Because if it can, so can a hacker.

One way of hedging on the risk is to require passwords to be changed regularly. Two factor authentication, such as offered by CA Technologies, is another way of gaining a bit more peace of mind. I know of organisations which require a separate dongle to be connected before a login occurs; and of course Singapore banks like DBS and UOB issue tokens that generate random numbers for online logins.

Nothing can be 100% safe, but it can certainly be made safer. Does your company have some way of ensuring that passwords are hard to guess and which are protected in other ways? It's worth considering adding some form of security if not.