Some employers are providing paid family leave (PFL) as a popular addition to employee benefit packages, and are finding that it can help improve employee engagement and productivity.

While large employers in technology, finance, consulting, and legal are leading the charge, other industries and smaller employers are beginning to offer PFL as well. Historically, paid parental leave (PPL) was the benefit launching point that evolved into PFL with broader benefits. The news media frequently discuss the two interchangeably, which can be confusing.

PFL is a complex benefit with multiple factors affecting cost and perceived value to employees:

• What family leave purposes are covered? Options include: bonding at birth or adoption; caring for parents; caring for spouses; caring for children; personal healthcare; domestic abuse or stalking response; and military family leave.
• What is the level of mandated wage replacement? State PFL and local laws vary as to percentage of wage replaced, and the maximum cap on total weekly benefits. States offering PFL include California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New York (beginning Jan. 1, 2018), and District of Columbia (beginning July 1, 2020). Employers have more freedom to design custom PFL packages for their employees if unaffected by these jurisdictions or similar municipal laws.
• What is the duration of the benefit? In Rhode Island it’s four weeks, in California and New Jersey it’s six weeks, and New York begins at eight weeks and will reach 12 weeks by 2021. In these four states, the program builds on state temporary disability insurance programs. The District of Columbia will require from two to eight weeks depending on leave purpose. U.S. corporate benefits run as high as 20 weeks of PPL at Twitter, 26 weeks at Etsy, and 12 months at Netflix.

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I recently had a chance to sit down and talk with Seattle’s King 5 TV News on the passage of Washington state’s paid family leave measure. The bill was passed Friday, June 30 and goes into effect in a few years.  As director of Panorama’s paid leave program, our unique focus is to work directly with large U.S. companies as they assess, design and implement paid leave benefits.

Regardless of a national mandate, state regulations, or benefits offered directly by employers, our position is the same: paid family and medical leave should be made available to all U.S. workers because it makes business sense.

In Washington state and beyond, the conversation is just beginning, and progress is being made. For example, as I explained during my King 5 interview, paid leave is not a “woman’s” or a “mom” issue; every worker has a family member they will want or need to care for at some point in their life. This is a fundamentally different way of looking at this. To create change, we need to change the conversation, and that has to start at the top of any organization.

In my meetings with company executives and HR leaders, most agree their employees need paid leave benefits. Indeed, as the only advanced economy in the world without a national paid leave mandate, everyone agrees something must be done. While we are agnostic in the process that gets us there, we are passionate about working directly with companies to help them provide paid family and medical leave to their employees. We help companies think about and design paid leave benefits that fit their culture and workforce needs.

For more information, including research, a comprehensive step-by-step Playbook, and downloadable tools, visit our dedicated paid leave resource site, The Paid Leave Project or reach out to me directly: angela.romei@panoramaglobal.org.

Microsoft is upping the ante on paid leave for employees who need to take care of a sick relative. The company is now offering four weeks of paid leave with an eight additional weeks unpaid time. Before now, the company offered 12 weeks of unpaid leave.

Workers typically take this sort of time to care for a sick or elderly family member.

The new benefit, which applies to employees with a close family member suffering from a “serious health condition” as defined by the Family Medical Leave Act, was disclosed Tuesday in a LinkedIn blog post by Microsoft (MSFT, -1.78%) chief people officer Kathleen Hogan.

The benefit is available now to Microsoft employees in 22 countries and will expand worldwide over the next six months, a Microsoft spokeswoman said. Microsoft employs about 121,000 people globally.

Continue to the full article at Fortune.com

SEATTLE, June 8, 2017 / PRNewswire/ — The Paid Leave Project today released a comprehensive Playbook that helps companies build a business case for offering paid family and medical leave to all employees. The Paid Leave Project is a new initiative from Panorama, a non-profit action tank working to solve global problems through audacious thinking and bold action.

The Playbook is based on research by Panorama and The Boston Consulting Group, which reviewed the paid leave policies of more than 250 companies and interviewed 25 human resource leaders at large organizations. The Playbook makes a complicated topic easier to grasp, breaking down common misperceptions about paid leave. “The Playbook addresses one common myth employers face, that offering paid leave benefits costs companies too much money. Our research demonstrates otherwise,” said Angela Romei, director of Panorama’s Paid Leave Project. “This is good news for employers and employees.” Using the Playbook, a company can:

• Learn about paid family and medical leave in the United States: what it is, how it works, and what other companies are doing.
• Assess its own approach to paid leave, evaluate the business benefits and estimate potential costs.
• Design paid leave benefits, including employee coverage, leave duration, pay and program structure.
• Craft a winning case that will persuade internal decision-makers and senior leadership.
• Implement a paid leave program, from announcement to roll-out.
• Take advantage of a library of downloadable resources, including tools to help calculate costs and savings, case studies, FAQs and expert research.

New Playbook helps companies build business case for paid leave programs

Many companies provide no more than the unpaid leave required by the Family Medical Leave Act. The goal of The Paid Leave Project is to increase access to quality paid family and medical leave in the U.S., and a comprehensive Playbook is one way to help. Panorama is working directly with companies to help them build a business case for paid leave programs that enable them to stay ahead of their competition and attract and retain the best employees.

Continue to the full article

Check out this video from the 2017 Makers Conference as the panel discusses the impact of Paid Leave on businesses.

A growing number of companies are moving to provide paid family leave for their US employees — and they’re not all in industries you might expect. In addition to technology, financial services, and professional services firms, such organizations include food and beverage manufacturers, retail and food services companies, and even a government agency. Moreover, while paid family leave has traditionally been available only to birth mothers, companies are now making their policies much more expansive (covering all types of employees) and inclusive (covering all parents, all types of families, and a variety of personal events, such as the illness of a family member).

The employers we reviewed all see clear business benefits in providing paid leave.

While the trend toward providing paid family leave — either for the first time or with improvements to an existing policy — is well documented, it is not always clear why these organizations have decided to offer this benefit to their workers. To better understand this phenomenon, BCG examined policies across more than 250 companies and conducted interviews with 25 HR leaders at large organizations, as well as with representatives from business associations, advocates of paid family leave, and union leaders.

We found one common thread among the employers we reviewed: they all believe that paid family leave is good for their workers — and they see clear business benefits in providing it. They find that it makes employees more likely to remain with the company following critical life experiences, such as having a child or caring for an ill family member, and that it helps the company cultivate better employee talent, engagement, morale, and productivity. Paid family leave is also a way for companies to signal their values—their commitment to inclusion and diversity or overall support for their employees and a balanced work-family life. The benefit confirms those values internally and can also burnish the company’s brand externally. Moreover, the employers we studied have found ways to manage the costs of paid family leave through thoughtful design.

Certainly, not every organization will conclude that it makes sense to cover the costs of paid family leave, and a national policy would almost certainly be required to provide full and equal access to paid family leave for all US workers. But there is mounting evidence that those that do stand to reap sizable and lasting benefits.

View the complete report from The Boston Consulting Group (BCG)