Paypa Plane shows how startups can embrace paid parental leave equality

We don’t typically associate startups, and especially those in the financial technology space, with great paid parental leave policies, given the very notion of being small and nimble can be seen as a reason to put off developing such policies.

Nor do we typically see women leading and dominating the leadership teams of fintechs, where less than 10% of such businesses worldwide have women founders or co-founders.

But the Brisbane-based Paypa Plane is bucking the trend, led by CEO and co-founder Simone Joyce.

The payments platform, founded in 2018, has just made a commitment to increase paid parental leave for all parents to 12 weeks, giving both mothers and fathers the time to help support shared parenting responsibilities at home and contribute to Australia’s overall push for paid parental leave equality.

The policy removes the “primary” and “secondary” labels that can too often be applied to parents from employers and governments, and offers the 12 weeks over a continuous period, over two separate periods, or part-time.

The drive to promote parenting equality in this way stems from Simone Joyce’s own experience as a CEO, a founder, and a mother of four, highlighting again how women founders can drive great policies for the teams they build.

“As a mother of four children and a founder and CEO, one of the best things that I personally think we can do as a company to support equality in the workplace is to start with our parental leave policy. By supporting both parents equally, we can create a positive impact for our team and open more choices for them and their partners,” she said on the announcement.

Simone Joyce’s husband Damian Joyce, who is the creative lead at Paypa Plane, explained how he took on the primary carer role for their youngest daughter, back in 2020.

“I think it’s important to normalise sharing these responsibilities. I loved taking time away from work to care for our youngest, and it was amazing to see Simone grow the company significantly during this period,” he said on the announcement.

The business is still small, at 47 employees, but growing fast. Founded by Simone Joyce and Jonathan Grant, it recently raised $10 million in Series A funding, as well as backing from Mastercard, and has plans now to double its team to more than 100 over the next five years, and undertake further product development and deployment.

This article was first published by Women’s Agenda.