Sharing the care: Ninaad

Ninaad Karve Customer Journey Expert Ninaad Karve welcomed his twin boys into the world on 30 July 2019. Since then, he's made the most of our parental leave benefit so he can spend more time sharing the care at home. This is his story, in his own words.

ING’s parental leave benefit means I’ve been able to get the right balance with family and work commitments.

My wife Ramona gave birth to our twin boys Vivaan and Reyan on 30 July last year. I ended up taking two weeks annual leave, and two weeks unpaid leave so I could be at home during that time.

That first month was a whole new experience. We’re first time parents, so the challenge was figuring out how to look after, not just one baby, but two babies at the same time. Coming up with hacks to make things easier was critical, as well as getting a routine established early on.

Ramona and I turned out to be a great tag team – she’d do all the feeds till 9pm, then I’d do the late shift during the night - I was in zombie mode a lot of the time. I was so glad I’d booked the time off so I didn’t have to worry about coming into work after those sleepless nights!

I returned to work in August 2019 just as the new parental leave policy was announced, and found out it covered new parents from 1 July 2019. When I told Ramona about it, she thought it was awesome. She was taking a year off from her job as an accountant, so we talked about what would happen once she returned to work. After all, that’s what a Customer Journey Expert does - plan ahead!

Ramona’s recently gone back to work four days a week, so she can take care of the boys every Monday. Because ING’s parental leave policy is flexible over two years, it’s allowed me to have an ongoing arrangement where I take every Tuesday off. It means we’re saving heaps by reducing the number of days they’re in childcare – especially as we’re paying for two of them! The arrangement works well with my manager and team - they’ve been very supportive throughout the whole process.

Vivaan and Reyan are at that age where they’re really interactive now, so it’s been fun looking after them on my own on Tuesdays. I’m still calling it my ‘teething phase’, plus Ramona is close by if I need a hand.

Vivaan means ‘full of life’ and Reyan means ‘little king’. They’re not traditional names, but we thought they were quite unique. It turns out there’s actually a lot of Vivaan’s in Sydney! And he often gets confused with Vivian, like when we’re at the doctors. It’s funny.

For me, ING’s parental leave benefit means I’ve been able to get the right balance with family and work commitments.

It’s made life a lot easier, for me and Ramona. I’m very thankful for that.

We’re celebrating the first year anniversary of our updated parental leave policy by sharing stories from new parents at ING to show the impact it’s had on their families. We believe having or adopting a child is one of the most important moments in life, which is why we removed the outdated terms of ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ carers, giving all new parents at ING access to 14 weeks paid parental leave. This can be taken all at once or flexibly to best suit each parent’s unique need.