Amazon announced to its employees today that it has increased the amount of leave time it is giving to new parents, joining a host of other tech companies that are extending benefits in order to attract top talent.
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New parents who work at Amazon can look forward to improved benefits beginning next year, including 20 weeks fully paid leave for new moms.
Amazon also introduced a “leave share program” that allows employees to gift all or part of the six-week leave to a spouse or partner who does not have paid parental leave through his or her own work. Just 17% of companies in the United States now offer paid paternity leave, according to a survey by theSociety for Human Resource Management. The paid leave benefits apply to full-time hourly and salaried employees who’ve been employed with the company for at least a year, including workers in fulfillment centers and customer services associates. It conducted internal focus groups and studied the policies of other companies, the memo says. She would get an additional two weeks pay to cover the time her spouse or partner was at home with their child and not working.
The benefit is unique, said Elliot.
Previously, Amazon’s policy offered eight weeks of paid leave to new moms, and 12 weeks of unpaid leave. Here’s how the company explained the new program in its message to employees this morning.
The expanded benefits come in the wake of a scathing New York Times investigation that blasted the company for its poor work culture.
One thing we hear from new mothers at Amazon is that they wish their spouse or partner could also take paid time off from work.
Yet the move also comes at a time when many companies are not only adding more time off to their parental leave benefits, but getting more creative in the kind of benefits they offer new parents. Employees are eligible for one year of paid leave following the adoption or birth of a child. However, her husband’s employer provides only unpaid paternity leave, and it’s going to be financially hard for him to take time off. That’s where the Leave Share Program can help.
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Elliott said companies are likely making such updates to get ahead of potential regulatory changes, as paid family leave increasingly becomes a topic on the presidential campaign trail. Employers would also prefer to stand out on benefits rather than salary, he said, because there’s much more flexibility in redesigning or even cutting benefits if needed over time, while doing the same to base pay is much harder. “They have not really started to multiply”, Elliott said.
