Vodafone has been working hard internally to achieve gender balance, increasing the number of women in senior leadership positions.

To retain more talented women, and increase the number of women in senior roles, the business developed a global maternity policy which gives women across 30 subsidiaries a minimum of 16 weeks fully paid maternity leave and a 30-hour week at full pay for six months after their return to work. Other than the United Nations, few global organisations have adopted maternity policies of this kind.

Vodafone wanted to trigger a global conversation on traditional and social channels to position the company as a pioneer in addressing the challenges faced by working mothers and, as a result, increase engagement and advocacy among women worldwide.

Vodafone commissioned KPMG to analyse the cost to global businesses of providing 16 weeks of paid maternity leave compared with the cost of backfilling and training new employees when women do not return to work after having a baby.

The estimated $19bn annual cost reduction provided a strong news hook and formed the focus of a short animation video and infographic for online news outlets and social channels. The material was released ahead of International Women’s Day.

As with the majority of global companies, maternity benefits at Vodafone were previously managed on a country-by-country basis, using local market statutory allowances to develop each policy.

Retention rates of women returning from maternity leave in each country were researched. Across its global footprint, Vodafone found that 65% of those women who left the company following maternity leave left in the first year.

However, this percentage was significantly less at Vodafone’s businesses in Italy, Romania and Portugal, where women received quality time with their newborn babies, and were also supported on their return to work.

At Vodafone Italy, where women are able to work shorter days for their first few months back, but at full pay, most were staying in their jobs. So, as well as offering 16 weeks minimum maternity leave - which is in line with what the United Nations offers its employees across the world - Vodafone Group decided to take a similar approach for every market. Women returning to work following maternity leave are able to work for 30 hours a week at full pay in their first six months back to work.

By supporting women with a minimum global maternity policy, Vodafone is enabling women in many of its markets to spend more time with their newborn babies, helping with a gradual return to work and, in the medium term, helping to retain more women across its global footprint.

The USA, a country without paid statutory maternity leave, was a key market for traditional media and social media coverage - alongside New Zealand, the UK, Qatar and India.

Every country, market and media outlet welcomed the news of Vodafone's global maternity policy.

We generated 659 media articles (predominantly Tier 1) and 172 broadcast items within one week across 33 countries (including 17 Vodafone markets), reaching an estimated 268m people (Meltwater Analytics) and 41m impressions.

The animation video received more than 1.8m views (Meltwater Analytics).

There were 6,039 original social media mentions. The video and infographic were shared on Twitter by Arianna Huffington, (1.8m followers), the Wall Street Journal (5.98m), Sky News (1.94m), the Financial Times (1.6m), CNN (974k), the UK government’s digital advisor Joanna Shields (7,056 followers) and Elizabeth Nyamayaro, senior advisor to the head of U.N Women (4,100 followers).

At least 90% surveyed across four markets (Opinion Matters) said they felt more positive about Vodafone as a company and employer.

Social media sentiment analysis 100% positive (Meltwater Analytics).

Vodafone achieved all of the above with just three in-house team members (one of them an intern) and limited support from Golden Goose PR.

Vodafone’s desired medium and long-term results are for the policy to attract more talented women in to the organisation and, with the improved maternity benefits for many, ensure that more women are able to stay in their jobs following maternity leave, with many eventually progressing to more senior roles.

Vodafone has been working hard internally to achieve gender balance. Over the last five years, the company has moved from 15% senior women to 21%, with a publicly declared ambition to get to 30% and beyond. Vodafone believes that its new maternity policy will play an important role in helping to bridge that gap.

Too many talented women across the world leave working life because they face a difficult choice between either caring for a newborn baby or maintaining their careers.

With the global minimum maternity policy, Vodafone is addressing an issue that is prevalent across business - that many women do not return after maternity leave or find it difficult to return to the workplace after the changes that having a baby brings.

Vodafone wants to attract and retain talented women and recognises that providing an attractive maternity policy is key.

The new policy will support over 1,000 Vodafone women employees every year in countries with little or no statutory maternity care. The intention is that it will result in better decisions, a better culture and a deeper understanding of Vodafone’s customers’ needs.

By working closely with all Vodafone markets, we ensured that the animated video, infographic and other assets worked effectively across the multiple cultures in which the company operates.

A global, creative PR campaign which would use the internal policy as an opportunity to build brand advocacy among women worldwide, as well as position Vodafone as an attractive employer, was developed.

There were two goals: to target female consumers; and to build Vodafone’s employer brand in support of the company’s objective to increase the number of women in its senior leadership team.

Vodafone set out to capture traditional and social media attention around International Women’s Day, using bespoke research commissioned from KPMG to provide macroeconomic context which was then communicated creatively via an animation video and infographic.

KPMG’s research demonstrated that it would cost businesses worldwide around $28bn annually to provide 16 weeks of fully paid maternity leave; however, backfill recruitment and training costs to replace women who leave after a baby costs around $47bn.

The net $19bn cost reduction underpinned Vodafone’s assertion that its new policy represented sound business sense, providing the peg for briefings with business, news, women’s editors and bloggers globally. The research also underpinned the supporting animation video and infographic.

The Vodafone team coined the term ‘maternomics’ (also used as a hashtag) to promote the new policy and KPMG research findings. All material was localised via a global toolkit sent to each Vodafone market. This included translations of the infographic and animation video which was created with embedded text for maximum visual impact.

The Vodafone HR director responsible for the policy – herself a working mother – was trained for broadcast interviews as was the company’s most senior executive in the USA, a country with no statutory paid maternity benefits.

Tier 1 outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, BBC, CNN and CNBC, were briefed under embargo with broadcast interviews aired on the morning of 6 March when the collateral was released to all outlets globally.