Life at DICE: Why 3 dads are going on (extended) parental leave - Amo Mostofi

Lots of studies show that Sweden is a family friendly country and one of the reasons is its generous parental leave system. Under the law parents can take paid leave for 480 days (16 months) for each child, and 90 days are exclusively reserved for each parent. The days don’t expire until the child turns 8 years old, and the parents get about 80% of their income (with a cap,) which allows lots of Swedish parents to have great quality time with their children.

According to OECD, while only about 18% of fathers take parental leave internationally, 45.3% of Swedish fathers are taking parental leave. Also the number of days used per child born by men is 131.1 days on average, which is the highest in Scandinavia. This is resonated by the fact that lots of dads at DICE are taking long parental leave with an extra company benefit, and this is one of the good examples of how people in our studio appreciate work-life balance and drive gender equality. 

Amo Mostofi, Producer, is talking about his parental leave experience and the potential impact of long time off. 

What is your role at DICE?

I am a Producer at DICE, which means I am the product owner for certain parts of our games. Essentially I own the vision for large portions of the game, and work in tandem with our other discipline leads to ensure we fulfill that vision. On STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT II I was the Multiplayer Producer for our Live Service – starting with the Clone Wars.

Day to day I work with cross-functional teams to deliver features to our players. On STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT II those features were largely gameplay focused. We delivered a new marquee game mode called Capital Supremacy, which focused on higher player agency, and COOP, which was focused on allowing players to really experience the feeling of being the hero. 

Tell me about your family! Is it your first child?

No this is our second child, so I’ve already been through parental leave once with DICE already. That was back in 2017 so I am looking forward to doing it again this summer. 

Most of my immediate family is back in London, so my family here is relatively small. It’s me, my wife, two kids, and two very old cats. My wife is Swedish, so we have her family very nearby and that is a great help and comfort. 

When are you going on parental leave? 

I will be on parental leave from mid-June 2020 until mid-January 2021, so I will be away for roughly 7 months!

Being on parental leave for 7 months is relatively long for international standards. How do you feel about taking such a long leave?

Parental leave in Sweden is priceless for our family. As I go on leave, my wife will be going back to work, allowing her to pursue her career ambitions. It feels great to do my small part for workplace equality, while getting quality and quantity time with my children during their formative years.

That is why I am very excited to be going on my second parental leave at DICE. Although, this time I feel better equipped to handle it. I will be going in with some experience under my belt and will know what to expect! Although there will be times that I will be outnumbered by the kids, so that will be a fun new challenge. But, as I said, this experience is priceless, and I feel very grateful that I can take advantage of it.

However, there is part of me that is sad to be leaving the project I am working on. Our team has built a strong, transparent, and trusting culture, which has been an amazing asset for us during this lockdown period. I know I will miss my team, our daily interactions, as well as the constant challenges that producers experience. 

How did you and your partner come up with this arrangement? What are the points that you took into consideration when making the decision? 

We had a number of key points we considered. The most important ones for us were a) how long do we want to spend with our daughter before putting her in school b) what is the best way to approach this period as partners, and c) how do we minimize the impact on our career prospects. 

Early on it was clear to both of us that we wanted to keep our daughter at home until she was at least 18 months old. Knowing this meant we could look at how we approached this period as partners. I was keen to spend more time at home with this time, so that informed the discussion somewhat. To be honest I would have liked to have split it 50:50, however we took point C into consideration at this junction, realizing it was best for me to go on leave once my team had been established and I had met my annual goals. This also meant my wife would go back to her role after summer, giving us a cleaner timeline. 

In my opinion, approaching this from a partnership perspective is vital. It shows you understand the sacrifices the other person is making for the family, and it removes any assumptions about predefined roles, allowing both parties to fulfill their needs.

In Sweden once the child turns 1 year old, you can send him/her to daycare (so that you can go back to work) but it seems you’re gonna keep your baby at home longer.

As I mentioned earlier, we were sure early on that we would keep our daughter at home until she was 18 months old. 

When we initially discussed this topic for our first born in 2016, we agreed that a year was too short of a time for our family. While we knew he would be happy and safe at school, we would be thinking too much about whether or not we left him too soon. This would ultimately impact our focus at work. So we decided that we would hold on to him until he was 18 months old by which point he would (hopefully) be walking, have (some of) his teeth, and was generally a more functional little human. It seemed to work well for him, so we are doing the same for our daughter. 

I’m British, but culturally I’m also Iranian, so I was raised in an environment where you keep the baby close until a certain age, so that certainly has an impact on how I view these issues.

What do you look forward to the most?

Bonding with my children. The dedicated time I had alone with my first child meant the world to me. We forged a real friendship and we formed an amazing bond. We also created rituals just for ourselves. For example, there is this thing we do when it comes to cleaning up where he wants me to become “Daddy Robot”. I put on a robot voice - now largely inspired by Pathfinder from Apex Legends - and walk around cleaning his room in a robot like fashion. We started it when he was about a year old, and 3 years later he still wants me to do it. He even joins in now, using a robotic voice to say “Henri Robot”. For me as a father, it’s very special, and I’m looking forward to doing the same with the second one!

Any other exciting plans during your leave? 

During my last paternity leave I got to travel a fair amount of the time. We spent time in the UK and in Asia. As I said, my family is based in London, so I would love the chance to go home and spend a lot of time with them – COVID-19 restrictions permitting, of course.

This summer we will try and explore Sweden as a family. My wife has friends and family all over Sweden, so hopefully we will have some fun road trips this year. I will also try and double down on my Swedish – but I also said this last time and had very limited time to learn the language! Still, it is good to have a personal goal.

I’ve promised myself that I will not think about work, which is hard when your passion is your work. Thankfully, I have my children and family to focus on…as well as some late night gaming sessions with some friends and colleagues.

Lots of exciting plans! It seems you’re gonna make the best out of this, but internationally it’s still mainly mums who take long parental leave. Why do you think it’s possible in Sweden/DICE for dads to take such a long parental leave?

Sweden’s working culture is weighted towards a good work life balance. That includes letting both parents enjoy time with their children and allowing both parents the opportunity at a career. 

On top of this Swedish mindset we have the DICE culture which echoes similar values. At no point during the build up to my first parental leave was I made to feel guilty for going on such a long leave. In fact the way the people around me supported me made it very easy for me to go on leave.

There are parts of my surrounding family that expressed their concerns, “if you go away, your career is going to suffer”. I’ll be honest and say that I also had similar concerns the first time I went away. And when I returned, I came back to a slightly different role. That sent up a flag for me. The team had been restructured and I was now asked to support a leader as opposed to be a leader - like I was before I left. I was to support Lars Gustavsson, our Creative Director and the famous Mr. Battlefield. So while I was no longer THE lead, I was still in the leadership group plus I was now learning from a seasoned pro. So it worked out and ultimately I feel my career was not negatively impacted in any significant way. 

For this parental leave I worked with my manager Adam Clark (Head of Production) to establish a departure plan which started in Summer 2019. We planned which areas I would work on, and we created a rough initial plan for the transition period. We spent the remainder of the year fulfilling that plan at quarterly intervals.

The result of this early planning is that my role will be covered in full while I am away. My lead position will be covered by another Producer who has worked with me for the past quarter, being onboarded regarding all crucial functions. This type of commitment to planning gives me confidence to go on leave, knowing I will come back to a similar well planned roadmap in 2021. 

Additionally a number of my colleagues have been transparent on what they want me to do when I return. Both Ryan McArther (Sr Producer) and Andreas Morell (Sr Producer.) have had sit downs with me and detailed the role they want me to take upon my return. That again, gives me confidence to leave and enjoy my time away. 

There’s also the financial support that DICE gives you while you go away on leave. Everyone knows about the Swedish model/system, but DICE has a policy that tops up your salary, removing any financial worry you may have. It’s great when your studio says, “you’ve been here for 6 years, we’re gonna top up your salary for 6 months.” (*1) Policies like this just completely negate all the financial worries that you have as parents, and you can focus 100% on two little ones running around and destroying your home! 

(*1 DICE offers to full-time regular employees parental salary benefit that would bridge the gap between employees’ normal salaries and what they get from the state up to 90% of their regular salaries. How long they’d be paid would depend on how long they have been at the company. Terms apply and are specified in our collective bargain agreement.)

There are lots of working parents, especially working dads outside Sweden, who are concerned about being away from work for long periods of time, but it seems you don’t have much concern. Do you think that is also due to the fact that you have been at DICE for quite a long time, made lots of achievements and know that the team needs you here?

I think it definitely contributes. When you’ve established yourself in the company, that helps to make you feel secure, so you feel more comfortable taking “risks”, that’s just human nature. But I think it is important to stress just how different the mindset and culture is at DICE. Even if you are new, not established, or have had a bad year or so at work, the same opportunity to go and spend time with your family will be made available to you. And most importantly, you will be treated the same as an established individual when you come back. 

Ultimately, you are wanting to know if I would go on if I was in a weaker position. The answer is yes. In fact the first time I left to go on parental leave I was still relatively new at DICE. And as I mentioned before I had some concerns, but given how DICE works to support its developers, and how Swedish law helps protect your rights, I still felt it was worthwhile. 

I’m from Japan and for lots of Japanese dads taking parental leave for months is unrealistic, even if they technically can under the law, even if they know it would be great. I guess it really comes down to the culture.

For me what really helps culturally is seeing senior people taking this time off and going away. When I saw them doing it, it really made me think that it’s something acceptable. I’ve worked in London, I’ve worked in Singapore, and I have worked with colleagues on nearly every continent, and I have never seen this level of work life balance at a company. 

When a C level person takes time off to be with their loved one, and then comes back to the same role some 6 months later, that sends a strong message. You then see the next level of seniors doing the same, and again, coming back to similar senior roles. This provides confidence to the entire studio, to every developer, regardless of seniority. This is a crucial building block of our culture here at DICE, and one that I am happy to embody. 

But of course you have to also realize that you will miss out on certain things. In some cases you will miss out on potential opportunities or roles. In others it may impact your annual bonus because you have been gone for 50% of the year. This experience isn’t free, there are trade-offs you will have to make, but ultimately the opportunity to spend both qualitative and quantitative time with your children is priceless, at least to me. 

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