Dive Brief:

• The Seattle Times reports that Amazon.com enhanced its maternity benefit to up to 20 weeks of paid leave for new birth mothers -- a growing trend among tech employers battling for increasingly scarce high-quality talent.
• Amazon received a lot of controversial press after the New York Times outined a detailed, albeit disputed, look at the huge e-tailer's alleged stressful company culture.
• Recently, the company announced it would be gathering added feedback from its white collar workers. This latest announcement was delivered to employees on Monday via email, the Seattle Times reports. The expanded benefits include full-time workers in Amazon’s distribution centers, the Times reports.

Dive Insight:

Under the policy, new parents with at least a year's time at Amazon receive six weeks of paid leave (adoption is included). It's the first time Amazon has offered paid time off for new fathers. In addition, the Times reports, Amazon now offers a "leave share program,” whereby employees can "gift" all or part of the six-week leave to a spouse or partner who does not have paid parental leave through his or her own work.

“The war for talent is so incredibly fierce in the tech industry, that (companies) will do anything and everything to attract and keep the very best talent on hand,” Glassdoor community expert Scott Dobroski told the Times.

“Amazon’s policy can vary from parent to parent, and 20 weeks has actually already been seen by Google and some other companies for a few years,” Dobroski said, who doubted the change came because of the New York Times article. “So [Amazon] is actually a bit behind chronologically and in terms of perks and benefits.”