Did you know that the United States is 1 of 7 countries in the United Nations that does not offer Paid Parental Leave? While the United States does not offer a federal paid leave, some states do and that list grows more every year. States like California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New York, Washington, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Oregon currently have paid family leave programs created to support employees financially. Offering these programs empowers employees to take leave because they know they have some form of pay to lean on. ComPsych saw this the first year Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) went live—there was a 27% increase in leaves!
What does our data say?
ComPsych’s data shows that parental leaves have been steadily increasing year over year with a total increase from 2019 to 2023 of 75% and a 45% increase for maternity and bonding claims. Interestingly, 16% of employees who take a maternity/parental leave take a subsequent leave for their own health condition within the next year. The top two conditions employees take leave for are for surgery at 22% and mental health at 10%. Fun fact… out of the 22% who take the subsequent leave for surgery, 5% of those are for hysterectomies.
Part of the reason why leaves are increasing can be due to the number of state PFMLs going live, but also due to employers implementing their own company paid leave programs.
Well, what are employers doing?
First things first… DMEC’s 2023 survey found that employers are adding paid parental/family care leave and they are outsourcing it. There was a 41% increase in 2023 compared to 24.5% in 2021. From our absence book of business, we see that out of the company leaves we administer, 25% of them include a maternity component and 23% include a parental leave component. Littler’s Annual Employer report further supports the idea of employers adding and/or considering a parental leave by showing that the top two areas organizations have revised or expanded its policies are related to pregnancy (38%) and paid sick leave (28%).
The maternity and parental leaves we administer under the ComPsych absence book of business have some common policies in place. After looking at these policies, we noticed the following trends:
- A list of inclusive of leave reasons—adoption, foster care and birth of a child
- 12 work weeks for entitlement
- Continuous leave only
- No documentation/proof of birth required
As we drill down further into industry categories, we see similar policies as the ones listed above with the exception of entitlement. While service industries (health services, educational services, food stores, engineering and management), finance, insurance, and real estate all offer 12 work weeks, like the average we noted, wholesale trade offers six work weeks and manufacturing, retail trade, transportation, communication and utilities offer two work weeks. The differences in entitlement are likely due to the nature of each job.
Creating a supportive program for those going out on leave:
As I am sitting here in Illinois, typing this blog, pregnant with twins, a state PFML in Illinois sounds pretty magical. So, if you are in a similar situation as me or an employer who has employees in a state without a PFML, here are a couple of ways to support those in your organization.
Before leave:
- Share behavioral health, work-life and well-being coaching resources: Be proactive! These resources can be leveraged to support mental health during a time of great change, search for daycare, financial discussions, preparing for a newborn and nutrition. You never know when you are going to fail your glucose test and get diagnosed with gestational diabetes requiring a full 180 on what you eat.
- Start planning early: Find back up coverage, educate an employee on how to file a leave and how their pay will work.
- Remind employees of their benefits: We have already established that there is no federal paid leave so ensure employees know what they do have that would bring in pay. Do they have short-term disability, hospital indemnity? PTO? PPL?
- Discuss what return to work looks like in advance: Having these proactive discussions will help the employee feel more at ease with what to expect when they return.
- Educate leaders: Ensure managers are up to date on leave laws do’s and don’ts, leading with empathy, and creating teams with psychological safety. Also share self-care tips for leaders—often we forget they take on a lot of the workload and stress when their employees are out on leave.
During leave:
- Educate leaders: Reaching out to employees for work related items is not acceptable. If a manager or supervisor needs anything from an employee related to work, they should reach out to HR for support.
- Educate employee out on leave: Let them know what is needed when they return to work. Do they need a fitness for duty form? Communicate any organizational changes. It is the worst to be out on leave and come back to find out there were several leadership and team changes.
- Communicate: Check in to see how the employee is doing! You might be thinking, “Didn’t you just say not to reach out to the employee?” The difference here is that you are reaching out for something not related to work. Instead, be empathetic and human. A maternity/parental leave is NOT a “vacation.” The employee just had a major change in their life. A simple, “Hi, how are you, baby(ies) and family doing?” goes a long way!
Returning from Leave:
- Share behavioral health resources: Regardless on the amount of time the employee has off, it is never easy to leave your newborn with someone else to watch. Sharing resources to cope with this helps.
- Ease the employee back into work: DO NOT give 100% of their work back on day 1. Create a transition plan and over the course of the next couple of weeks bring the employee up to speed.
- Educate leaders: Yes, this is the third time you see this bullet because it is just THAT important. Share resources on how to support an employee coming back from leave. Ensure they are aware of where to direct the employee if accommodations are needed. Most importantly, please train leaders on empathy and psychological safety!
Whether an employee is a first-time parent, second or third, each time is different and support is needed. Creating a supportive program for employees, even in the absence of a paid leave program, can lead to higher retention, increased motivation, boosted productivity and even improve your recruitment.
