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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

#201

Post by alkonaut »

wolfgke wrote: post #163
alkonaut wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why it’s parental leave not maternal leave . Women are usually away longer but it’s not uncommon in countries with long parental leaves to have some part (e.g 1/3) reserved for each parent. Employers aren’t wary if a 30 year old man is as likely to leave for 6 months as a woman is to leave for 12. Orgs don’t avoid hiring all 30year olds out of fear they might become parents. Other reforms such as free/subsidiz…

> Employers aren’t wary if a 30 year old man is as likely to leave for 6 months as a woman is to leave for 12. Orgs don’t avoid hiring all 30year olds out of fear they might become parents. If you don't know who will leave, just do some statistics. Currently, it is more women. If fashion changes, it might be that an age group that has not completed family planning will simply be discriminated against.

Some stats from where I am: 30% of parental leave days are used by men (was 10% in mid 90s). A clear majority of dads do go on some leave, and of course almost all women do. Of 480 days to share between parents 90 days are reserved for each, meaning it’s a typical minimum for the father to do at least the 90. A more normal division is 12 months for the mother and 4-5 for the father.

Of course the stats say women leave more days. But importantly men take enough leave that it’s starting to not make that much difference e.g to an employer.

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

#202

Post by ng12 »

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…

Experience tells me this is also a really good way to test how essential your essential employees really are. If you're fundamentally redundant or your job can be replaced by a 1-year temp people will take note.

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

#203

Post by bluecalm »

nasalgoat wrote: post #158
bluecalm wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My partner worked at a 10-person company and took the year off for parental leave. They hired a temp to fill her role, who left when she came back. I work for a 15-person company and we had a developer take a year off. We hired a temp developer who left when the other dev came back. Not sure why this is hard to understand?

It's sometimes doable sure. 10-person company is 5x bigger than mine though so it's way easier there. It's also the case that some areas require specialized knowledge and some don't. If I hire someone even very competent it will a few months till they are productive because we work in a very niche area. If you need someone who programs a CRUD website then yeah, it is easier. Just because something is doable in your 10 or 15 person company doesn't mean it's doable for others in their <5 people businesses.

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

#204

Post by woodpanel »

irrational wrote: post #150
bluecalm wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Men can get parental leave in European countries, so in this case your strategy is not working. Depends on the country. In mine women get much more time and men usually take none or just a few weeks at most. I think that's the case in most countries.

I live in the USA and at my company (albeit a large one) both men and women get 6 months of paternity/maternity leave.

In Germany you'll get up to three years right-of-return.

The employer doesn't pay you a dime. First twelve months you get approx. 60% of your current income from the government (BTW the same coverage people get when unemployed). You can expand those twelve months into 24, halving the amount of what you're paid. You can also apply for additional support (e.g. there's a fixed amount per kid you'll get until it reaches adulthood).

From the feedback I've gotten so far 3 years sounds bizarre to most people outside of Germany. It certainly sounds like something guaranteeing a manifestation of gender-pay-gap. But it is in my experience actually the women here, who mostly want those 3 years. And equally bizarre: how shocked many are to hear how fast mothers return to their jobs in say France or Switzerland.

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

#205

Post by bpicolo »

groestl wrote: post #57

We (Austria) have up to 1063 days of paid parental leave (paid for by social security), if both parents decide to take it. It seems our companies manage :)

> paid for by social security

This seems to be the key in countries with similar policies. You wouldn't see that system grow in the US as it stands, because companies pay for leave.

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

#206

Post by cheesymuffin »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #46
rb808 wrote: post #24

I once worked with a guy who had 4 children in 5 years. He took a lot of parental leave, sick days and often slacked off early. As soon as the last baby was stable he quit for a new job. Companies and teams that are too generous get shafted.

Sounds like he's the sort of guy that would work the system no matter what - he could be an argument against sick days or flexible hours as well. There will always be people like that, but if the societal good outweighs the few bad apples, I'd argue that's a plus in general.

Yeah, it's really unfortunate when someone cares more about raising well-adjusted kids than the Company.

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

#207

Post by woodpanel »

GordonS wrote: post #190
woodpanel wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I can relate to your logic, I wonder: Since men are increasingly considering taking maternity leave as well, wouldn't it be a good alternative to focus on people older than say 40? What would keep you from hiring them?

Not trying to be a dick, but for info, male 'baby leave' is called "paternity leave"

no offense taken, I'll claim the always forgivable "not-a-native -peaker" ;-)

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

#208

Post by bluecalm »

dwild wrote: post #179
bluecalm wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but you need to play the odds. If decision A means 5% chance you can't pay for a good college for your kid and decision B means 2% chance of being in that position which one do you choose? If I run 100+ people firm then the cost is small enough that I can eat it for making the world a better and fairer place and I also get benefits of more inclusive work place. If I run a small 2 people business I will weigh ev…

So you are saying that you have a higher chance that a young woman will carry a baby than having a young man change for a better paying offer? I'm one of theses young one out of college and I can tell you, based around me, your stats are clearly wrong ;). Most don't care about babies, but they all certainly care about getting more interesting jobs. I'm Canadian too.

If someone leaves I can find a replacement and hope they don't leave. If a women has a baby then I will either need to hire a temp which is more difficult than to hire for full time position or suddenly have 2 positions open (I need to have that when my first employee comes back). For a small few people company having 2 positions open instead of one is often unreasonable cost.

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

#209

Post by tgtweak »

docker_up wrote: post #114
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…

Canada does it because there aren't very many high-performing companies in Canada. I'm saying this as an expat. Most of the top performing Canadians move down to the States. The companies that exist in Canada are companies like banks, Rogers, Bell, etc, where you won't find too many high performers. I have a friend who has taken 2 1-year leaves, and it didn't impact her job because her job as an account manager isn't…

A few things that need clarifying to make a fair comparison:

In Canada, the government pays the benefits, and they are capped at $60,000 per year (and you only get up to 75% of that at the best case if you take a lower amount of time than 12 months). Additionally, it's 12 months split between the mother and the father, not 12 months each. On top of that, you are taxed on the income from those benefits, at your marginal tax rate. As far as companies go, many will hire and train a replacement if they anticipate a 1 year leave, and, particularly in the private sector, will often times restructure or abolish a position when it's convenient. The labour laws on this are well defined but not often upheld and there is a lot of room for maneuvering here and only government positions really respect this to the T.

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

#210

Post by tptacek »

chefkoch wrote: post #88
tptacek wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Outsource it to a contractor / lawyers office or whatever you did before? As in my other response, you have months to prepare a solution.

I'm not getting involved with the broader debate, I'm just saying that the idea that you're meant to have redundancy for all your staff is not a norm.
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