After Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer caught all sorts of flack over her no telecommuting policy, she has seemingly done a 180 on the warm and fuzzy family-friendly scale with a new maternity leave policy that is, by all accounts, awesome for an American business. New moms who give birth themselves get 16 weeks of paid leave with benefits. New dads get eight weeks paid paternity leave. If you adopt or foster, both mom and dad are eligible for eight weeks paid leave. In addition to leave, new parents receive $500 for things such as house cleaning.
All of this sounds awesome and it brings Yahoo more in line with its direct talent competitors, Google and Facebook, but it’s not what you need to do for your business. Here’s why.
To keep reading, click here: Why You Shouldn’t Try to Match Yahoo’s Fabulous New Maternity Leave Policy
Great, real insight. I’d agree it was awesome to see another company actually supporting their employees instead of using the FMLA crutch, but I get it…Yahoo is HUGE. It’s just too easy for companies to say, “yes, we support family values…we practice FMLA!” No, ya don’t. That’s just a cop out and lazy. Like you said there are so many little things that companies can do that won’t hurt the bottom line but give an edge when it comes to maternity. Where I’m at now (and like most policies I’ve seen) are just grazing sheep in the FMLA pasture. Of course they use FMLA, but they make it worse. We HAVE to use up all of our sick, vacation and personal time in order to use FMLA. So what does that mean? When we do come back to work we walk into no time off available to tend to a sick kid, sick self or just life. Mind you this is all without even the option to buy into short-term disability. Ultimately let ME chose if I want to take my whole 12 weeks unpaid or dip into my reserves. That alone would be a small step to show support beyond FMLA.
I honestly think that as you impose laws on businesses that they stop thinking about what the “right” thing to do is and focus on what is the “legal” thing to do.
I got a “this website contains malware” warning from the Google Chrome browser when I clicked on the link to the article (inc.com).
Yeah, I know. They are having major problems. I hope they get it fixed soon!
Of course, when the new mom or dad comes back from that fabulous maternity/paternity leave, they can’t work from home a few days a week. But hey, Y gave them 16/8 weeks to start.
It seems strange at first Yahoo would be generous with Maternity after their recent move for home working. When I think about it the two are really different and removing home work wasn’t directly meant to affect parents (although indirectly I’m sure it will. Thanks for the post!
It is appalling that your country has some of the worst, perhaps the worst, maternity leave of western first world nations. The fact that 16 weeks seems so generous that can’t be mimiced by smaller companies is sick and sad.
Also love this line ” Under the law you have to treat pregnancy/childbirth like you do any other disability. “. Pregnancy is not a disability, and should not be thought of as such. But having a child should give you more than 3-4 months off. Look to Canada and Europe where the norm is 12 months.
U.S. is a great country, but you really have some social policies that are barely better than what you’d find in a Dickison novel.