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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

#251

Post by fipple »

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…

How they manage in Canada is that they have many fewer successful knowledge-based businesses per capita, at every level of success.

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

#252

Post by adamsea »

rdlecler1 wrote: post #211
rytor718 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's just logical self-interest which is exactly his #1 job if he's running his own business. This is precisely one of the cultural obstacles to correct. Dropping in a 1 year policy without substantial organizational preparation and planning is -- surprise -- doomed to fail. Like every single other aspect of organizational planning. The problem in the US is we simply do not value these kinds of things. We value ind…

Someone running a small business is usually most concerned about survival, not individuality. And if you think small businesses first priority should be substantial organizational preparation and planning then it's clear you've never tried to start a company. The main focus for most entrepreneurs is survival in face of the market. Fail at that and you are doomed to fail. I'm both a parent and a small business owner a…

If the law applys to everyone then wouldn’t that one particular part of the playing field be even?

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

#253

Post by doggydogs94 »

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…

The Gates Foundation did not have to research it, they experienced it.

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

#254

Post by qgsrw3fd »

randyrand wrote: post #192
Pfhreak wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's crazy to think someone could be employed somewhere 7 years and only work 3. Alternative take: It's humane to think that someone who had four kids wouldn't lose their job because they had four kids.

Is it? Having 4 kids is not exactly something anyone has to do. Where we spend our time is a choice. If someone decides to spend significantly less time working to raise 4 kids, is it really inhumane to allow the employer to replace them with someone who wants to spend more time working?

Actually yes, we definitely must encourage having more kids.

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

#255

Post by fipple »

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…

I had a company with roughly 10 engineers give or take over its lifetime. The two younger women never left. The men, younger and older, left at various times, one after 4 months, and one with 4 hours’ notice.

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

#256

Post by 8ytecoder »

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…

Basically what happens when the developer is hit by the bus. Don't we accommodate for this in regular business by creating redundancies? When you know someone is going on a parental leave you double down on that and add one more redundancy. For cases like the CFO, it's not unusual for someone reporting to the CFO temporarily taking over the CFO role (with/without the title).

(Honestly why is this any different from someone leaving an org or being generally unavailable for any reason? In fact, in this case it's much better since a baby doesn't pop-out just like that - it gives a nice few months to train a temp.)

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

#257

Post by Mirioron »

lhorie wrote: post #244
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…

> If I am looking for 3rd programmer in my 2 person small company I will not risk hiring a young woman Ignoring the fact that this kind of discrimination is flat out illegal, you are forgetting to consider that the Canadian policy allows males to take parental leave as well, so the excuse for the discrimination isn't even logically consistent. Personally, having lead teams of people ranging from experienced professio…

>you are forgetting to consider that the Canadian policy allows males to take parental leave as well, so the excuse for the discrimination isn't even logically consistent.

But they are much less likely to take this parental leave.

>Personally, having lead teams of people ranging from experienced professionals to interns still in school, I find it extremely hard to imagine a small business that is such a special snowflake that "getting a new employee to the stage where they contribute value is a huge cost".

Well, everyone else doesn't get to always run wildly successful small businesses. Most small businesses fail. I imagine that if you yank out a significant portion of their workforce that they'll be even more likely to fail.

>By the end of the year, worst case is your business grew 0%, you get your full-time employee back and it's business as usual.

Aka your small business shuts its doors, because the market has moved on and you couldn't keep up. Half the businesses fail within the first 5 years. Only a third of businesses survive 10 years.

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

#258

Post by Certhas »

bluecalm wrote: post #159
dragonwriter wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. So, OTOH, is a sex discrimination lawsuit, especially when you are blatantly guilty. Also, most Western jurisdictions with paid or even unpaid but job-protected parental leave policies apply them without limitation by gender. And thes…

>>So, OTOH, is a sex discrimination lawsuit, especially when you are blatantly guilty. Yeah, lawsuit or my children not being able to afford college. Oh the choices... I think I am taking the lawsuit, especially that it will be very hard to prove anything with just one employee. >>Also, most Western jurisdictions with paid or even unpaid but job-protected parental leave policies apply them without limitation by gende…

You are just bullshitting. By your accounting, if your employee quits, or falls ill for a month or two, which would have the same impact as the training period for the maternal leave replacement, your kids would not be able to afford college [1]?

Does your employee Ski? Because ACL tears are damn common, and medical leave for an ACL tear is up to 3 months.

[1] (which if you're really not in the US should be free anyway)

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

#259

Post by phil21 »

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.

> 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.

Hacker News - where everyone forgot what an actual startup is.

VC funded "startups" with millions in the bank should really be called something else entirely. Only in the past 20 years has that become the norm. Typically a startup is a self-funded enterprise with 1 or 2 key employees for the first few years.

During those actual startup phases you likely have a bus factor of 1 or you are likely not doing anything remotely interesting enough to warrant you starting a company. Once you get your VC funding and have 50 employees and a 1 year runway? You're not a startup any longer.

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

#260

Post by bluecalm »

Certhas wrote: post #250
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…

Wow. Just wow. So, in many European countries, fathers and mothers have a right to substantial amounts of parental leave. Like a year or more. In all of these places small businesses exist. In Sweden, with very extensive parental leave [1], there is a large number of start ups. So obviously, empirically, you must be missing something. Generally speaking, if your employees care about your business (and getting their j…

I want to support women having babies. I just think current regulations put too much burden on the employers especially small ones. I also think it's unfair that a women who decided to have kids just after college doesn't get any (or way less) help that a women who found a job and get pregnant right after. A system set that way encourages women to have children later in life because they will get more benefits then. I think it's backwards and we are all paying the price already.

I just want incentives to be aligned in a way that it doesn't make sense to make sexist decisions when hiring and it doesn't encourage women to postpone motherhood because of how benefits are set.

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