Only 21 per cent of employers offer a paid maternity benefit beyond that disability leave, according to a recent survey from the Society for Human Resource Management.
Advertisement
Microsoft Corp said on Wednesday in a blog post that it would increase its paid parental leave to 12 weeks for all employees becoming parents of newborn or adopted children. However, this type of open philosophy on leave comes with potential downsides. During his State of the Union address in January, President Obama lamented that the U.S.is the only advanced country in the world that doesn’t guarantee paid maternity leave.
While Netflix’s offer is by far the most generous of all of the companies out there, some others do offer very good options for parents.
Europes way ahead of us on this particular issue, he said. Employees will be allowed to return and leave again if necessary and continue to earn their normal pay throughout. At the time the video-streaming firm announced this policy, CEO Reed Hastings said Netflix evaluates employees based on what they have done, not on how many hours they worked. Not everyone thinks so. But some of those employees will eventually start families.
Steve Debenport/istock Employees can return to Netflix part-time, full-time or on-and-off. One is whether an unlimited policy fundamentally fits. “Nobody wants to be the company left behind”. The company suggests parents can come back to the office either part or full time, then go back out as necessary during the first year. But not all companies will necessarily want to do that. “Companies are moving away from hard and fast rules to whatever the employee and supervisor agree to is fine”. If the employee loses the job, he or she might view the loss as retaliation for being away from work for a period of time, even if that was not the intention at all, and file a lawsuit. The federal government has set the bar pretty low. At Google, mothers who are expecting can take up to 18 weeks of maternity leave. How many people will actually avail themselves of a one year leave?
Leave your comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter using #WBZTalker. However, there seems to be some political traction for creating friendlier leave policies for moms and dads.
Obviously that mentality has changed a lot over the past 70 years, but many parents still go unpaid during baby’s first months.
Advertisement
“I think it’s excellent”, Sacramento mom Gwen Roedel said.
