Parental leave policies can feel overwhelming for the small business owner but they don’t have to be! On our last blog we discussed the required policies you have to offer your staff, and that is an essential place to start before drafting your own company’s policy. This week we’re talking additional benefits regarding leave that you can offer to your employees.
Why consider additional benefits that are not required by law? Two very important factors that all employers should consider: retention and productivity.
We talk often about how offering good benefit packages to your employees not only fosters a happy team, but also supports your bottom line (we’ve written some blogs about this too, go check them out!) and parental leave is no exception. A good policy will bolster that employees faith in their workplace while setting them up for success by respecting the work/life balance. Attractive benefit packages are becoming more essential in today’s workplace and it’s wise to adopt the trend sooner rather than later.
So what are some popular parental leave benefits?
- Consider a variety of leave options and speak with your staff before choosing. These can include intermittent leave (employee can take time of as need during the first year), reduced schedules (employee can work reduced hours based on both their physical and family schedule needs), or an extensive block of time of paid leave (employee can take more leave than is required by law). You should include the feedback of your current staff before picking one of these policies, their insight could be invaluable knowledge of what benefits would actually be, in fact, beneficial to them.
- Remote work. Allowing your employee to come back to work remotely is a great option to consider as it could relieve them of both time- and money-consuming child care needs. Often something as simple as a commute can put a wrench in your employee’s ability to maintain their work/life balance. Allowing them to get their work done at home could be the difference of retaining said employee or loosing them.
- A little unorthodox but some companies are allowing employees to bring their babies to work. This would require planning ahead and a legal waiver, and it is certainly an option to discuss with an HR professional (like us!) before implementing. But it is an option that is happening which simply goes to show us that getting creative with parental leave can help our company retain great employees and therefore maintain essential productivity.
What should you ALWAYS do before a leave takes place? Make sure both you and your employee is well-informed about the policy and any questions or concerns are addressed! Need help? That’s where we come in. We’ll help you draft and implement a policy that makes sense for your company, benefiting both the employee and the bottom line. Reach out to us today!