How Baker McKenzie made support for parents a workplace wellbeing priority
2025 WINNER · Legal profession
Becoming a parent can create pressure around finances, recovery and career progression. Baker McKenzie’s 2025 winning entry addressed those pressures through workplace policy, placing support for parents within its wider approach to mental health and wellbeing.
What they did
The entry described enhanced maternity leave of up to 52 weeks, including 26 weeks fully paid, and six weeks of fully paid paternity leave. Antenatal care time, Keep in Touch days, flexible returns and a wellness room complemented the leave entitlement.
Managers received guidance on supporting returning parents, while leadership communication encouraged both mothers and fathers to use the policy. At submission, the policy had been rolled out across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain offices.
The broader support described included psychiatric insurance benefits, a confidential Employee Assistance Programme for employees and families, hybrid working and clinician-led wellbeing sessions.
What the entry shows
The firm described the parental policy as being at an early stage, with a small eligible population. It reported positive employee feedback and strong uptake, but did not provide a sufficiently detailed dataset to quantify a retention or mental-health effect.
The concrete change was the entitlement itself and the practical arrangements around returning to work. Those changes matter without needing to claim an outcome the entry had not yet demonstrated.
What others can learn
Wellbeing can be built into the terms and routines of employment. Time, financial security and a supported return can address pressures that an awareness session cannot remove.
For other employers, the useful question is whether policy, manager behaviour and day-to-day practice work together when an employee experiences a major life transition.
Based on the organisation’s original 2025 mentl awards submission. Figures and observations are those reported in the entry.
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