Business Roundtable companies more likely to offer parental leave

Dive Brief:

Based on its Dec. 18 analysis, JUST Capital found that Business Roundtable (BRT) companies are more likely than non-BRT companies to offer paid parental leave and have better disclosure policies around paid parental leave. JUST took on the analysis after BRT published letters to Congress and the president urging action on paid family leave.
While two-thirds of BRT companies disclose their policies, they also tend to offer less time for leave, JUST Capital noted, offering on average about 11 weeks to new mothers and six weeks to new fathers — compared to 12 weeks for new mothers and seven weeks for new fathers at other companies.
According to JUST Capital, only 18% of private-sector employees and 29% of workers in large organizations have access to paid family leave.

Dive Insight:

BRT CEOs told lawmakers in their letter that a federal paid parental leave policy would help organizations "challenged by the growing patchwork of competing and inconsistent state plans" and benefit workers. The BRT recommended in the latter that a federal measure have the same requirements as the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), allow employers flexibility in managing paid family and medical leave benefits and to self-finance their plans to maintain them so long as they meet minimum requirements.

Federal workers will now receive 12 weeks of paid leave for the birth or placement of a child now that President Donald Trump has signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020.

A lack of federal rulings for the private sector has encouraged innovation in the private sector. A 2018 Mercer report found that 40% of employers offered a paid parental leave benefit, a statistic that Mercer said showed that organizations were trying to align their time-off policies with workers' needs.

Intel took its paid parental leave policy a step further by adding a reintegration program to its leave benefit — a trend that is also taking off. The program allows new parents to work part-time schedules for as many as four weeks with full-time pay. The company also provides no-cost breast milk shipping. These kinds of progressive additions to paid leave policies help employees meet their parental needs, while upping the ante when it comes to attracting and retaining workers in the tough competition for talent.