3 Ways Tech Companies Are Offering Parental Leave

Tech companies are competing for recruits and retention: same old, same old. What’s new is their strategy—something other than on-site massages, nap rooms, and haircuts. Google, Facebook, Netflix, and most recently, Amazon, are now bragging about their generous family leave policies. Who would’ve thunk it? Companies have heard the message: today’s top talent cares about work-life balance. But the devil’s in the details. Which family leave model will actually attract and retain valued employees? Mark Zuckerberg’s recent announcement of his intention to take two months of parental leave provides the crucial clue. Model 1: Take-what-you-need policies In a news making August announcement, Netflix declared its flashy new leave policy. In the year after their child is born or adopted, employees can take as much time off as they’d like: full salaries paid, benefits maintained. Netflix’s model sends a message. It fits in with their mantra of “treating employees like adults,” deftly negotiating professional and familial commitments in the way that works for them. And yet Netflix is notorious for its high-pressure start-up culture. No employee is guaranteed a job one second past a stock drop. In this climate, will employees actually take leave? What if doing so signals that you aren’t indispensable? Ambiguous parental leave, without organizational expectations for time off, provides fertile ground for the “flexibility stigma”— backlash that emerges when high-hours work culture professionals take leave. Female leave-takers risk triggering a documented stereotype: that mothers are less competent, less committed to the company. And flexibility stigma can be even more dangerous for men. A 2013 study by Laurie S. Rudman and Kris Mescher found that men who take parental leave were categorized as poorer workers, associated with negative feminine traits (weakness, indecision) and disassociated from masculine traits (competitiveness, ambition.) For men, flexibility stigma is really femininity stigma – which is evidence of sex discrimination. Let’s hope that Netflix’s parental leave policy is being implemented with a mind towards eliminating flexibility stigma. If not, this model and its splashy headlines will produce few benefits—since employees won’t actually use it—alongside substantial legal risk. Model 2: Lopsided leaves Probably the most common form of leave offers one period for a “primary caregiver” and a much shorter period for a “secondary caregiver.” Google uses this structure, offering 12 weeks of primary paid leave (22 for biological mothers who experience complications) and 7 weeks of secondary leave. It’s an open secret that it’s women who are expected to, and do, take the longer leave. The result is that leave is seen not as something everyone takes, like sick leave, but as something women take, which reinforces the stereotype that mothers are not committed. This fuels attrition: mothers often leave their employers not because they have lost their career commitment, but because their employers assume they have—and good work dries up. Lopsided leave policies may be turnoff for men as well as women, because they reflect the outdated view that one parent is the primary caregiver while the other parent pinch hits. That’s out of sync with a younger generation that aspires to equal parenting. We’re in the middle of a vast generational shift. Many younger men feel that being a good father means involvement in daily care—that’s a sea change from the world many older men grew up in. In the era of “set-piece fatherhood,” a good father showed up to the ballet recital. His wife, however, found the ballet lessons, drove the child to rehearsals, bought the tutu, and put the recital on her husband’s calendar. When older men see younger men adamant about hands-on fatherhood, they may become defensive: “I didn’t do that, and I’m a good father.” Snark ensues: “Do you really need to be gone that long?”; “Isn’t your wife taking leave?”; even “Who wears the pants in your family?” In workplaces with primary caregiver policies, it’s often an open secret that leave is intended for women only. If a man dares to take his, the insults begin. Comments like these potentially violate two different federal laws. By discouraging men from taking leave, they constitute interference with the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Such comments also can be introduced as evidence of sex stereotyping in a gender discrimination lawsuit. If similar comments aren’t made to women (and they rarely will be), that’s more evidence of gender discrimination. Backlash against male leave-takers when they return to work (in terms of assignments, promotion tracking, etc.) constitutes both sex discrimination and FMLA retaliation. Such insults are increasingly likely to lead to lawsuits. Josh Levs filed a prominent one against Time Warner; the company’s policy allowed leaves for virtually every group except biological fathers. The suit was recently settled on undisclosed terms. At the Center for WorkLife Law, we run a hotline for those facing family responsibilities discrimination. The number of men calling for legal help has sharply increased in the past year, and now make up 25% of all callers. Some call on behalf of wives or girlfriends, but many call about their own issues involving discrimination triggered by family responsibilities. To summarize: at best, lopsided leave policies often won’t be effective in retaining women—or men. At worst, they open the door to litigation. Model 3: A standard policy for everyone This third model is the best: figure out how much paid leave your company can afford, and then offer equal leave to everyone. Spotify offers six months of paid leave to all parents within the first year of birth or adoption, which can be taken anytime up until the child’s first birthday. The next step is to foster a culture in which both women and men feel safe taking the leave. Tom Stocky, head of Search, famously made public a blog he wrote on his leave experience. Last time we checked, it had over 10,000 likes. Facebook’s policy is not perfect. In November 2014, the New York Times reported that not all Facebook fathers were taking their full four months. At time of publication, fathers were taking more than two months on average; the majority of women were taking the full four. But remember: in an era when most men take no more than a week or two, two months is a good start. Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that he intends to take two months of leave stands in sharp contrast to Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, who famously took only two weeks of leave when her first child was born and has announced similar plans for her forthcoming twins. Let’s be real: do you really want your men to take leave? You should. If only women take leave, it’s inevitable that leave-takers will be stigmatized as less desirable employees. That’s a recipe for losing women who return from maternity leave only to find their careers sidelined. So a leave that only women take probably won’t get the retention benefits companies are after. Josh Lev describes the problem: a woman is given a monetary incentive to take leave, then returns to work to see her projects taken over by a man. Increasingly, younger men will be dissatisfied, too. “The change from the old stereotype—the dad who comes home from work, kicks his feet up, and reads the newspaper—has been in the making for decades,” writes Lev in his new book, but “as long as fatherhood continues to be mocked freely, fathers will continue to be looked at as secondary parents.” Editor’s note: This article was updated Nov. 23 to include Spotify and Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement.

3 Ways Tech Companies Are Offering Parental Leave

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