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Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

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Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#71

Post by prostoalex »

xutopia wrote: post #14
simonsarris wrote: post #11

> [heading] How do they manage in Canada? > In Canada, companies have had no option but to make 52-week parental leaves work, when requested, since 2000. The question Canadian companies ask isn’t “Can we do it?” but “How do we do it?” Okay, so... how do they do it? They never answer the question. If you have say, a CFO or a specialist mechanic (that you only need 1 of, but definitely need) and they take a year off, w…

We hire interims or share responsibilities between other members of the team. It happens all the time and we rarely find an issue with this. If any company is run in such a way that bus-factor means the company can't thrive with one person gone you're simply doing it wrong.

Large companies have economies of scale and a back bench of qualified labor to step up when necessary.

Small companies frequently lack that - for instance, your team members might share responsibility, but are you sure areas such as payroll, legal or facilities are as generously staffed?

It's in large companies' interests to get such rules instituted across the board, as it raises the costs to enter the market for a potential disruptor.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#72

Post by bradlys »

dyarosla wrote: post #63
fastbeef wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to say, the first day at work after 9 months of parental leave is... sublime. To be able to go to the bathroom and close the door is a pleasure you don’t know until you have to go without. As an aside, what happens to children in the US between 1 month until they start kindergarten (and at what age)?

Private daycare or nannies fill the gap.

There is also stay at home parents. Somewhere around 20%.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/24/stay-at-home...

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#73

Post by AmericanChopper »

Haydos585x2 wrote: post #36
beart wrote: post #9

As a parent, I would much rather take that year and use it to shorten my normal working week for as long as possible. With 260 working days a year, you could work 4 days a week for the first five years of your child's life.

In Australia that's not unheard of. Plenty of women (and men) will go to a 3 or 4 day work week for a longer stretch rather than taking a full 12 months off.

I know a couple of people who permanently negotiated 4 day working weeks after becoming parents. One of them has his daughter at some sort of parent run day care, where each of the parents spends one day a week staffing it, so they all work 4 days (at most) and spend at least one day looking after all the kids.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#74

Post by walshemj »

simonsarris wrote: post #44
DavidHm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the company is utterly reliant on a single person, that person is either an equity owner, or should be, and the owner is taking advantage of them. If you own in part the business, then imho you take as much or little parental leave as you want/can afford.

The reason I used CFO and specialist mechanic is that often companies are utterly reliant not on a single person, but a single person's work or expertise. It may be no problem at all to hire a replacement expert , just like it is easy to hire a new accountant if your accountant dies from a heart attack. But you still hire a new accountant, and in this case, with parental leave, hiring someone to do the leaver's job l…

you know there is an entire industry of recruitment agencies that specialise in interim directors?

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#75

Post by unavoidable »

simonsarris wrote: post #11

> [heading] How do they manage in Canada? > In Canada, companies have had no option but to make 52-week parental leaves work, when requested, since 2000. The question Canadian companies ask isn’t “Can we do it?” but “How do we do it?” Okay, so... how do they do it? They never answer the question. If you have say, a CFO or a specialist mechanic (that you only need 1 of, but definitely need) and they take a year off, w…

Surprisingly few people are actually trying to answer this question on this thread. The answer is straightforward: you either structure your organization so that there are enough overlapping responsibilities to account for parental leaves (e.g. good business practice of not making a fragile organization), or you hire a temporary employee explicitly on a 1 year "parental leave" contract.

The labour market is quite good, and there is no shortage of qualified individuals for almost all positions (CFO, specialists included). Often, a good temp ends up getting another position at the same company after doing the 1-year contract. There is also a small cottage industry of successful individuals who basically take such jobs.

Maybe hard to accept for some, but the world doesn't end when people go on leave to have kids.

It also turns out that most people (that I know) are quite happy to buy into this particular social contract. There is a tacit understanding that you might have to pick up the slack a bit for someone else, but one day you might need the same in return - borrowing against the future is another way to think about it.

Source: Canadian, have worked in organizations and involved in hiring policies where this is successful.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#76

Post by lliamander »

simonsarris wrote: post #11

> [heading] How do they manage in Canada? > In Canada, companies have had no option but to make 52-week parental leaves work, when requested, since 2000. The question Canadian companies ask isn’t “Can we do it?” but “How do we do it?” Okay, so... how do they do it? They never answer the question. If you have say, a CFO or a specialist mechanic (that you only need 1 of, but definitely need) and they take a year off, w…

There's also something unsettling about "here's how [countries where the native birth rate is pretty much 0 or 1 babies] do parental leave!" feels a bit like... the women already did half the corporation's work for them.

There's the rub, can you (at a population level) have a birth rate at or above replacement if both parents are expected to find employment outside of the home? I don't think that's realistic.

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#77

Post by ar0 »

chefkoch wrote: post #12
chrisco255 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except on a global scale.

In Germany we have 12 months parental leave and it seems the country is doing quite well.

Salaries especially for specialist jobs tend to be quite a bit lower in Germany (as is the case in Canada) than in countries like the U.S. or Switzerland which have much less generous parental leave, though. Of course, parental leave is just one variable here, but in a way this is the obvious trade-off: You can have more parental leave and lower salaries, or less parental leave and higher salaries. (The same is true for all other non-monetary benefits of a job such as job protection etc.) On a country-level, both options can work equally well.

Me, personally, I would pick the "more parental leave and lower salaries", but I get that other people might feel differently.

(Edit: This cuts the other way around, too, by the way. Often people in Germany will complain that people across the border in Switzerland -- or in Silicon Valley -- will earn much more, but they ignore that working days are longer, with less vacation time, less parental leave etc.)

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#79

Post by walshemj »

tptacek wrote: post #62
chefkoch wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you absolutely need one for the business to function you need more than one person knowing how to do the job. Maybe not as good as the first guy but beeing so dependant on one person can put a company out of business. I thought that was basic knowledge espcially in tech.

This is simply not a norm in American business. Most companies have numerous team members that have no redundancy or fail-over. For instance: a mid-sized startup hires its first GC --- it is certainly not a norm for that company to hire two lawyers in case one needs to take leave, and also not the case that the rest of the team can simply pick up the slack.

A company that needs a GC as an employee is no longer a startup

Re: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves

#80

Post by torpfactory »

Isn’t a solution to allow parents to work part time instead of being completely off or on?

I feel like most people could still make valuable contributions at 50% time, at least for knowledge workers. Maybe like build up from time off back to full time over many months?

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