"I work for a London asset management firm. I only get two weeks' paternity leave"

I work for an asset management firm in London and I have recently become a father. The paternity leave I have been offered is pitiful. 

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It's 2026 and my firm is offering new fathers two weeks' leave. It is an impossible situation and I am not alone in feeling it. There are a few of us and we have all asked for more time off when our children are born. We've even raised the issue employee forums with the board.

Change has not happened. We've effectively been told that giving us more paternity leave will cost too much. This was communicated by senior board members in the employee forum and has been ricocheting around the firm ever since. 

It's been taken extremely badly by the new fathers. On one hand, we're told how ESG and social concerns are at the heart of our investment style. On the other hand, we as employees are being treated like cogs in a machine. 

Because we get so little paternity leave, we are having to resort to shared parental leave, but this has adverse implications for the mothers of our children, who then have to go back to work sooner. My own wife had a complicated birth with short term side effects and I needed extra time off to care for her. I had to take this from my annual leave and now have almost no holiday left. I'm exhausted. My wife is recovering and I have a new child.

The company is shooting itself in the foot. I am a loyal and high performing employee. In my opinion, we new fathers should get at least eight weeks. Two weeks' paternity leave is stuck in the stone age.

Olivier Deshaies is a pseudonym
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