Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation backtracks on one-year parental leaves • Hacker News Board

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

#311

Post by ben_jones » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 2:06 AM UTC

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…

I think the most blatant scenario involves a code-base where only one engineer knows where the skeletons are buried. Yes it's bad architecture, caused by sustained bad development choices, but it is RAMPANT in our industry. If said engineer gets hit by a bus, or goes on parental leave, the company is fucked. They deserve it, but they are still fucked and they are going to kick and scream whatever excuse they can think of to prevent these scenarios from being legislated into higher frequency.

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

#312

Post by bluecalm » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 2:07 AM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #278

Mirioron wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 sno…

Of course they are less likely to go on leave — they work for a guy who doesn’t hire women in non-disposable roles, because his family will starve if a female professional gets pregnant. Presumably the female custodians and admins just get purged.

Small business doesn't have "custodians and admins". It has a few people every one of them absolutely crucial for survival. Have you ever started a company without outside funding? Usually you have some savings, maybe for a few months and a lot of hope. Someone quitting in the middle of that to take care of the child means you won't make it.

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

#313

Post by sergers » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 2:08 AM UTC

In Canada you can now take 18 months shared paternal leave.

First 12 months you are entitled to employment insurance which is a certain percentage of your income.

The next 6 months are unpaid.

Our recent company ethics training had a interesting scenario on maternity leave discrimination and comments.

Some work places if you are key employee in some aspect entice you with pay, more flexible working conditions or provided daycare for coming back early.

My company deals with it by hiring contract workers.

Some content could take years to learn, so we recently shifted the core duties to remaining members and gave the contract worker remedial/administrative tasks which we all hated any ways.

Overall things still function smoothly

- however we have an interesting scenario coming up in the next few months where one employee is retiring and two are going on paternity leave (me being one, but only taking a month off using vacation as my wife plans To hog the paternity leave lol... it does make sense financially.

It will be interestinghow my company handles losing 3 key members of a 7 person team(atleast I will be gone a month only)

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

#314

Post by NikolaNovak » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 2:13 AM UTC

jacobsenscott wrote: post #153

NikolaNovak wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only speak from personal observations as a Canadian; note that I am using female workers/maternity examples and pronouns to try to answer the specific question posed, especially since historically my observed experience has been predominantly with maternity leaves, but also note that in Canada men can increasingly take paternity leave instead/in addition, which I 101% support and further believe will further ma…

I have never seen an irreplaceable employee at any level, from the c-suite on down. I've seen lots who think they are.

I think it may get philosophical/semantic very quickly, but let me put it this way: I have worked on projects, even with 50+ team member size, where I can identify a single person whose removal would cause us to miss KPI/SLAs. Thus, in practical ways, they are at least temporarily [for given value of "temporary", which may be days or years] "practically irreplaceable" and their absence hurts.

They may not be "strictly/formally irreplaceable", but it would take 5 people 5 times as long to do certain aspects of their job poorly, and we'd blow our targets.

Note that this was not usually due to specific skillset as such (which theoretically, for a price, you may be able to find on the market), but usually their personal, deep, historic knowledge of the specific project, client, requirements, and system. Things that are currently a 30 second question to this person, many many times a day, might become hours or days of reverse engineering either code, or requirements, or both, only to still not have complete answer, for each instance. Multiply by factor of 10-20 occurrences daily, and force multiply during active IRs.

Typically, both this person and project recognize this SPOF but there's some reason why it takes a long time to remedy. (Occasionally though, but rarely, this is instead a particular type of contractor/consultant who believes withholding information is a job security method; depending on the market, this is a short gain as word spreads fast once project has finally routed around the problem)

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

#315

Post by theluketaylor » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 2:22 AM UTC

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…

Organizations have adjusted quite well here in Canada. For people entering the labour market or moving up the responsibility ladder a maternity leave contract has become an extremly common way for people to get their foot in the door while offering companies a simple exit at the end of the contract if the fit isn't right. Hiring new employees can be risky for companies here since terminating employment is often not simple, but parental leave creates a perfect opportunity to offer fixed term employment contracts to people you can measure against the leave employee's performance. Once the leave is up if the contract employee has worked out they are offered full time employment (or sometimes other parental leave contracts). The obvious loophole is to not hire full time employees and to just string people along on contract after contract, but there is an employment law (at least here in Ontario) that companies cannot use contracts for an employee again after 4 out of the last 5 years contract work. The relationship either has to be terminated for a time (I think 2 years), converted to full time employment, or shifted to a true business to business agreement where the employee incorporates.

> What if the person takes parental leave again after 1 month back?

Parental leave available to everyone is funded by employment insurance, so your available leave is partly tied to how much you have worked prior to going on leave. Employers are free to augment EI, but everyone qualifies for the basic leave and it's paid for by everyone paying into the EI pool. Each individual company and person is not left holding the bag. Like our health care, spreading the costs to everyone makes things more sustainable since not every person in the country goes on leave or gets sick at the same time.

https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei/ei-maternity-p...

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

#316

Post by barry-cotter » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 2:23 AM UTC

adamsea wrote: post #252

rdlecler1 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It’s a fixed cost. The greater your resources the less it matters. So like every other fixed cost it makes things harder for all companies but it’s much easier for large companies to deal with. Like how GPDR is great for Google.

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

#317

Post by garyrichardson » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 2:24 AM UTC

This is the same level of horseshit as Medical coverage for all and single payer.

Maybe it wasn’t working the foundation because the US has such a pent up demand for parental leave that people who want to have families target working there. My company recently rolled out some pretty sweet parental policies and lo and behold we have a bunch of people taking advantage of it.

Here in Canada, there is always someone on parental leave. You just deal with it.

Generally speaking, execs and c levels operate at a different financial level and parental leave is not as life changing as it is for your typical middle class worker.

America, get it together and start treating your people with dignity and respect. You’re a first world country. Your people deserve better.

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

#318

Post by imh » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 2:34 AM UTC

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…

My CEO is currently out on maternity. Other people are covering. It just kinda works.

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

#319

Post by barry-cotter » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 2:35 AM UTC

woodpanel wrote: post #204

irrational wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Germany’s total fertility rate is below all but one of its neighbours so whatever it’s doing it’s not making things easier for women who want to have children.

Germany 1.41

France 1.98

Luxembourg 1.78

Denmark 1.74

Netherlands 1.66

Switzerland 1.44

Austria 1.38

Poland 1.27

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

#320

Post by barry-cotter » Wed, Feb 06, 2019, 2:42 AM UTC

tgtweak wrote: post #209

docker_up wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 margin…

> In Canada, the government pays the benefits

Taxpayer, you mean taxpayer