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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

#101

Post by kzrdude »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #10
fastbeef wrote: post #3

I’m not surprised. This is so different to how workplaces are usually run in the US that organizations, or society even, has no institutional memory on how to deal with it. In Sweden, where 400+ days of parental leave has been mandatory for years organization have adapted and learned patterns and ways to deal with people dissappearing for around a year. It’s a shame the Gates Foundation didn’t research this better be…

Are those 400+ days per parent or divvied up between the parents? I imagine that can have a big impact on how the leave affects companies.

480 days together. Of those, 90 days each are non-transferrable (between the parents).

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

#102

Post by hesdeadjim »

bargl wrote: post #43
hesdeadjim wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, the article title can practically considered clickbait when this is the resultant change in benefits. Neither my wife or I had a need to be home for an entire year with our child. Three months for me would've been perfect, six would've been a vacation, and six months plus $20k to cover my daycare expenses for the year would've been... well, words fail me.

OK, I read this felt a wave of relief. I'm not the only one. 1 year off sounds like torture to me. I'm not saying 1 year with my kid is torture. 1 year in the Caribbean would also be torture to me. I get cabin fever after a few weeks. My company did give me 1 month and it was awesome. I was also very happy to return to work after 2 (1 month unpaid). It was refreshing to engage that part of my brain again.

Yea I have zero desire to be off from work for that long.

I took a sabbatical/break between projects from May until around September this year. I put myself under no real pressure to do anything, and during the weekdays I was free to go mountain biking and do whatever else I felt like.

Yet still I worked on random projects for about 60% of the time the entire break. I just crave the deep flow state that comes from building things too much.

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

#103

Post by freefal »

Aloha wrote: post #64
tathougies wrote: post #27

I am against one-year parental leaves. My wife and I want ten children. That means ten years off work? How can a company manage? What if I were a less moral man and got two women pregnant a year? I mean, it's not that difficult. Even for faithful men, we plan on trying again (last baby born in December) in a few months. Is it really fair to ask my company to pay for my sex life? More worryingly, what kind of incentiv…

You dont need to take the whole year.

Yes, but the fact that he could creates a strong incentive for the company to identify such people and not hire them in the first place.

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

#104

Post by quakeguy »

unavoidable wrote: post #75
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 goo…

This is how it's done w/o having the company in shambles after 2 employees take their parental leave. Plan in advance, rely on a steady flow of workforce willing to work only for a year. I can't see any other options a healthy child-mother relation could develop than this. Of course, todays corporate design needs to be overhauled structurally for this to work, but we have to decide which benefits more for our society.

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

#105

Post by bluecalm »

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.

>>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.

Sounds nice but in practice it means people who don't have children or have less children do more work. As someone who doesn't want to have children I wouldn't want to work for a place where I am expected to do more work when others get pregnant. There is real cost even if government pays for the leave. Either you eat the costs of hiring a new employee (in some businesses it's several months of salary and time to train them) or your other employees have to do more work for the same pay.

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

#106

Post by hinkley »

AaronFriel wrote: post #70
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…

Good questions. People wear lots of hats in startups, and cross-train to avoid bus factors. If someone has highly specialized skills, cannot pass on their skills, and cannot be replaced, they are irreplaceable and the company needs to take other steps to resolve that for its own sake. Here's the question that answers all of your questions: What happens if that person quits? And the answer is, the company either adapt…

What happens if that person holds the company hostage and drags them in directions they don’t want to go?

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

#107

Post by bobbyT314 »

bluecalm wrote: post #95
unavoidable wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 goo…

It's surely doable in big organizations but small businesses it's an overwhelming cost even if the government pays the salary of the worker on a leave (the only way it can really work). Maybe the answer to that problem is that really important employees who make a lot of money shouldn't be hired as normal workers but as contractors. Something like: if you get 3x more average salary then you are important but you only…

Since this is parental leave we're discussing, would you make the same judgements when considering hiring a young man and only hire contractors that don't get the protection of labour laws?

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

#108

Post by CodeCube »

bluecalm wrote: post #95
unavoidable wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 goo…

It's surely doable in big organizations but small businesses it's an overwhelming cost even if the government pays the salary of the worker on a leave (the only way it can really work). Maybe the answer to that problem is that really important employees who make a lot of money shouldn't be hired as normal workers but as contractors. Something like: if you get 3x more average salary then you are important but you only…

> It's surely doable in big organizations but small businesses it's an overwhelming cost

And yet, there they are ... still having small businesses, and consulting shops, and all manner of people continuing operations in the face of such start conditions ;)

edit: Holy crap, I hadn't even finished reading your comment

> If I am looking for 3rd programmer in my 2 person small company I will not risk hiring a young woman as getting a new employee to the stage where they contribute value is a huge cost.

wat ... this is just ... this is a terrible thought process and ideology.

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

#109

Post by perfmode »

tathougies wrote: post #27

I am against one-year parental leaves. My wife and I want ten children. That means ten years off work? How can a company manage? What if I were a less moral man and got two women pregnant a year? I mean, it's not that difficult. Even for faithful men, we plan on trying again (last baby born in December) in a few months. Is it really fair to ask my company to pay for my sex life? More worryingly, what kind of incentiv…

Your argument is so convoluted that you were probably better off not saying anything at all.

It seems like you're starting from a conclusion and providing all of the things that support your conclusion. Instead, consider all the data and see what conclusions are revealed.

You haven't conceded a single merit to the counterargument.

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

#110

Post by markholmes »

bluecalm wrote: post #95
unavoidable wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 goo…

It's surely doable in big organizations but small businesses it's an overwhelming cost even if the government pays the salary of the worker on a leave (the only way it can really work). Maybe the answer to that problem is that really important employees who make a lot of money shouldn't be hired as normal workers but as contractors. Something like: if you get 3x more average salary then you are important but you only…

Why is this a gender issue? Both the Gates Foundation program and the Canada law are gender-neutral.
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