IMDEX’s Kiah Grafton believes doubling paid parental leave is a win-win

It should come as no surprise that, given the opportunity, many new parents choose to spend more time with their families following the birth of a child. Those early months of parenthood are both precious and demanding, and many parents feel the pressure to juggle between their family responsibilities and returning to work. 

We believe the answer is not asking parents to choose between family and career but creating the conditions that allow them to balance both. 

That’s why IMDEX has doubled its paid parental leave policy for primary and secondary carers, to 24 and six weeks, respectively. If both parents work for IMDEX, they would be eligible for a combined 30 weeks at full pay.

We are also granting primary carers a one-off payment of four-weeks’ pay on return.

We know paid parental leave supports higher return-to-work rates, improved retention, stronger employee loyalty and reduces recruitment costs, making it the right thing to do for IMDEX and by our employees.

IMDEX is a global mining technology and earth sciences company with employees based in more than 40 countries around the world – many of whom live in countries where there is limited or no automatic entitlement to paid parental leave. Providing a consistent parental leave experience reflects our belief that support for families should not depend on where someone happens to live or work. 

IMDEX’s investor story is a people story

Revenue, EBIDTA and margins are the dollars-and-sense metrics that our company’s performance is measured against. Though less tangible, culture is inseparable from performance – because how we treat our people is how we inspire the collective ambition to take our business forward and grow.

IMDEX is a company that almost doubles in headcount every three to five years, through a combination of acquisitions and organic growth. In FY26 alone, our workforce expanded by 24 per cent, with more than half of our new employees joining us from the five businesses we acquired during the year.

Given the speed of our growth, it is vital to ensure consistency of the employee experience across the globe – and that our policies and initiatives give our people more reasons to stay – because alone, competitive remuneration is not enough. People need to be, and feel, valued. 

And life happens. Approximately 70 per cent of IMDEX’s workforce has caring responsibilities outside of work, which includes caring responsibilities for children, elderly or other individuals. The importance of flexible and supportive workplace practices to help effectively manage professional and personal commitments cannot be underestimated.

A company primed for growth

Building up a bank of employee benefits like paid parental leave helps our workforce better embrace the current backdrop of a strong mining exploration cycle. Our people are already playing a significant part in helping to find and define the next generation of potentially globally significant minerals deposits.

For our customers, we know they must extract more value out of each metre of drilling, and do so at pace. Our people are helping extract that value through solutions that improve efficiency and productivity – something at the front of every board member’s, every exploration manager’s and every procurement team’s mind.

That is why IMDEX has invested heavily in its people, world-leading R&D, and through the acquisition of the foundational technologies for a fully integrated, end-to-end mining technology and earth sciences business. 

We are primed for our next growth phase – growth that that ultimately our people will deliver.