If you were a US business owner, would you offer 100% paid maternity & paternity leave?

Question

Would you pay workers @ 100% for maternity leave, paternity leave, or both?

For how long?

Would you also pay 100% of their child care?

If so, what impact do you think this would have on the health of your business? Especially if you started to attract many people wanting to start families?

Also, PA-TERNITY leave - would you/do you have the same policy for fathers as mothers (assuming a natural delivery)

Answer 1

I would do what my company does. But, I'm not sure how they can afford to do it. They are fair with everything.

You can select the PARENTAL leave benefit OR the SABBATICAL benefit. Both give parents get 6 weeks off. (You can't have both).

There is a fund you can pay into for each benefit if you want to take more time. (If you never use it, they dump it into your retirement account.)

PARENTAL LEAVE: They give both mothers and fathers 6 weeks of paid "parental" leave every 3 years. So, if you have a kid every 3 years, you are covered. If you have back to back kids, you have to use your other leave.

Also, you have to work for the company for 3 years before qualifying.

SABBATICAL LEAVE: They give 6 weeks off after working for 6 years. Great for single people and those that alreay had their kids.

So, it's fair to everyone. Nobody gets ****** just because they don't have a baby and fathers and mothers get the same amount of time off.

They do not pay for child care. Some people have 4 or 5 kids!

Answer 2

I would only give that to people I considered hard workers, who were an asset to my company, because those are the kind of people you would not want to lose. I would try to set up some kind of in office child care, that way parents can be close to their kids during breaks. I do not think it would affect my business considering I would only approve 100% maternity and paternity leave for hard workers who were assets, not lazy people who you would really love to fire, but you cant because their pregnant and might claim discrimination. I would not pay 100% paternity leave to men who were not married to the mother of their children, because there would be no real way of verifying whether he and the mother of the child lived together. A paternity leave for an unmarried man who may or may not live with the mother would be the equivalent of a paid leave, which is ridiculous if he is not spending time with the baby and bonding with it, hence the term paternity leave.

Answer 3

Yes.

As a business owner, my desire would be to pay 100% for new mothers. However, as a small business owner, that is a pretty big expense, for no immediate return. However, I think 1 month of 100% would be doable, and then maybe a rolling scale from there, (75% for weeks 5 and 6, 50% for weeks 7 and 8 and probably stop there) and the new mother could make the decision when she is ready to come back to work.

Paternity leave, I would say 100% for two weeks, but that's it. Mom's usually want the husbands out of the house anyway at some point.

As far as childcare, absolutely. Solving this problem for working mothers will do wonders for the health of a business. Humans are made to have families, and encouraging them to do what is natural is a great way to do business in my book.

Additionally, I think you would attract more quality workers, as well as have more of a selection over the quality of workers.

Answer 4

I am a US business owner - I employ more than a thousand (I'm on vacation today; even the boss needs a break now and then). I offer six weeks' maternity leave at full pay. (The company is self-insured). I will consider longer in unusual circumstances. I offer two weeks fully paid paternity leave.

The company has done this for the past eighteen years and our business remains healthy and competitive. We do not, nor do any of my fellow businessmen, find that offering these benefits attracts more people wanting to start families - a great deal more goes into people's job searches than that.

Answer 5

I would offer insurance that paid 66% (or whatever it is) for up to eight weeks of maternaty or paternaty that the employee could opt in for at the beginning of employment and during open enrollment. I would pay for half of whatever premium this was.

Child care (as in day care) is the employee's responsibility. If I had a really large company I might offer low cost day care at the facility up to school age.

Answer 6

No, I would not. In my opinion, it's contrary to the idea of equal pay for equal work. Why should someone choose not to work and still get paid for it? As a business owner, my goal would always be to the value of my company's stock, and offering anything more that say, 2/3 salary for any more than say, 8 weeks is ultimately going to drive down my stock price and send a bad message to my employees.

It might sound cynical or "sexist," but there it is.

EDIT:
Bonzai Betty, denying a BENEFIT based solely on their performance smacks of discrimination. Surely there would be other ways to discipline/fire a bad worker than by withholding a benefit. It might sound as if I'm contradicting myself, but I'm of a group that believe in all or nothing when it comes to things of this sort. I just happen to be in favor of "nothing" in this instance.

Answer 7

no, I would not. maternity and paternity are individual choices
and no employer should have to bear the burden. I would not
pay 100% for their child care either. This baby is not the
responsibility of the employer. This could ruin your business.

Answer 8

No! pregnancy/child birth is NOT a disease. It is 100% preventable. It would cost an astronomical amount. It would cost more than the employee is worth, most of the time.

As for the child care. If the mother is at home, why should you need childcare? The mother is the child care.

Answer 9

Yes,

I'd just reduce their regular wages put the difference into a holding account until they needed it.

Or, I can raise my prices, loose my customers to WALMART and go under. In which case -- they and I are unemployed.

On second thought no. They can SAVE for themselves to have a family and why would my workers that choose to put there kids in daycare get higher wages then the ones that choose to take a pay cut and have one parent stay at home.

Answer 10

I don't think businesses should be responsible for supporting a person's personal decisions. Sometimes people need to realize that if you want one thing you may have to sacrifice something else. That is one problem with people today, they want it ALL. Having children should not be subsidized by employers, that passes the cost on to the rest of us. When I had my kids we had to sacrifice a few things like a new car, maybe a vacation, new clothes...etc.