![\"Director](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/fb1fe56926f26bc88354e82d7fa84ff889e6110c.jpg\")
Camera IconDirector and CEO of DISSH, Lucy Henry-Hicks. Credit: View<\/p>\nAustralian fashion brand DISSH has come under fire for changes to its paid parental leave program, with some people claiming the new policy is unfair to its child-free workers.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, the retailer announced it would be expanding its paid parental leave programme to offer parents of children under 12 an extra two weeks of paid annual leave, on top of the four weeks all staff are already entitled to.<\/p>\n
Established by Queenslander Maree Henry in 2001 and later taken on by her daughter Lucy Henry-Hicks, the popular fashion retailer has two WA stores located in Claremont and Karrinyup in Perth.<\/p>\n
The female-founded company says the policy is designed to support working parents manage school pick-ups, sicknesses and important school events and help close the financial gap facing women in the workforce, arguing that \u201cambition and motherhood are not opposing paths\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is how we modernise works. This is how we raise the standard,\u201d the brand said in an Instagram post.<\/p>\n
The brand has garnered a heap of praise online for its new policy, with one person commenting: \u201cThis is supporting real life outside work which is what actually builds strong teams\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cLove this! Being a mother and having a career shouldn\u2019t come at the expense of one another,\u201d another person raved.<\/p>\n
But not everyone is convinced, with others being quick to question what the policy means for those without children.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat about women that can\u2019t have children and don\u2019t want to,\u201d one person commented, while another wrote: \u201cThat\u2019s special treatment and completely unfair to those who work hard and don\u2019t have children\u201d.<\/p>\n
Others highlighted the difficulty other small businesses would face if they implemented such a policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you think a small business can afford this. Annual leave is not free it costs the employer. Productivity drops. Working is actually a good thing and lobbying for more flexible work hours and conditions would be far more beneficial and productive for everyone,\u201d one person wrote.<\/p>\n
Camera IconDirector and CEO of DISSH, Lucy Henry-Hicks. Credit: View<\/p>\n
Commenting on a TikTok video discussing the brand\u2019s new policy, the official account for DISSH commented: \u201cWe hope this encourages broader conversations across industries. The more workplaces that prioritise real support, the better.\u201d<\/p>\n
The debate comes as Australian workplaces continue to explore and expand their parental leave benefits.<\/p>\n
Almost one in five employers now offers gender-neutral paid parental leave to allow fathers to access the same entitlements as mothers, according to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency.<\/p>\n
Major employers including Deloitte, QBE, Medibank, ING, KPMG and Commonwealth Bank have also removed traditional \u201cprimary\u201d and \u201csecondary\u201d carer labels from their parental leave policies.<\/p>\n
While some companies have decided to expand their policies, about one in three of Aussie employers still offer no paid parental leave at all.<\/p>\n
PerthNow has approached DISSH for further comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian fashion brand DISSH has come under fire for changes to its paid parental leave program, with some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":806705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,1625,44],"class_list":["post-806704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-lifestyle","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}