“When Google increased paid maternity leave to 18 from 12 weeks in 2007, the rate at which new moms left the company fell by 50%.” Paid leave, universal healthcare, and related programs would be such a boon to workers & the economy.
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Discussion 3 comments
Only a couple of months before my daughter was due in 2022, my company moved from the binary "maternity leave" and "paternity leave", to simple "parental leave". This gave folks expecting either a birth or adoption the option of 8 weeks of flexible time off or a full 26 weeks time off in a single block. As a dad-to-be this was huge!
I got a full 6 months of bonding time with my kid, and it became much more feasible to keep her home and out of daycare during her earliest days which included a winter with huge RSV numbers and no available COVID vaccine for such a young child.
My wife was stuck with "only" 16 weeks (which she'll never let me forget), and with both of us at home full time we were able to juggle the infinite labor of caring for a newborn. It even feels like our partnership is now stronger, since we were able to share the load.
I'm still happily at the same company without a strong desire to seek out higher pay, even though I could probably get it. Paid time off pays off!
I live in a country with legislated paid parental leave (though many smaller companies know how to work the loopholes, and the pay is much less than salary). My company made things so difficult for me on maternity leave / returning from leave that the minute a recruiter called, a couple months after I returned, I jumped at the chance. My feeling was, if they're not loyal to me, why should I be loyal to them? Sane, well-run parental leave is worth the investment if you want to keep your staff.
Mildly related: way way way back in the day Apple gave employees a paid sabbatical after they had been with the company for a while. I believe it was six months off every five years but I’m not certain.
Around half of the people didn’t come back. It was one of the first perks Steve Jobs did away with when he came back. It was great for employees but turned out to be an expensive way to hemorrhage talent.
I’ve been gone for a bit and never used parental leave but it wasn’t short and was available for both parents including those who adopted. I had plenty of coworkers take advantage of the time but none of them left FWIW.
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