Employees are no longer accepting the bare minimum from their employers regarding supporting their health and work-life balance. They’re also demanding their employers provide a top-tier company culture that makes the workplace enjoyable and growth-inducing.
A crucial part of building such a workplace culture and ensuring employees are well taken care of is the benefits and perks you provide, specifically childcare and progressive leave policies. Here’s how offering childcare and progressive leave policies can transform your business.
Become More Desirable to Potential Candidates
Potential candidates aren’t looking solely for the highest-paying company anymore. Instead, they’re seeking out companies that can offer them much more than money. Therefore, your benefits are critical to how desirable you are to potential candidates.
96.5% of married couples with children include at least one employed parent. 62.3% of these families include the employment of both parents. The main point to grasp from these statistics is that parents are working. Thus, offering comprehensive childcare options and a livable wage rather than just a big salary is a better approach to landing these candidates.
Keep Your Employees Longer
If you want to keep them longer, you’ve got to keep your employees happy. One of the best ways to keep them happy is by implementing progressive leave policies.
Going beyond the standard maternal leave policy and creating one that allows the same amount of leave for fathers, for example, is a brilliant idea. Especially considering only 45% of companies offer paid paternity leave. And of those that do, they only offer one week on average to the father versus up to 12 weeks for the mother.
Giving both parents time to enjoy being a new parent and bonding with their baby will incite more happiness. They’ll also appreciate you for doing more than most companies do, prompting them to want to stay with your company longer because you take good care of them.
Encourage More Holistically Healthy Employees
The effect progressive leave policies can have on employee health is astounding.
Access to various leave options for whatever they’re going through ensures they can nurture their mental, physical, and emotional health. And naturally, holistically healthy employees are the most productive, engaged workers.
For example, the COVID-19 pandemic changed pregnancy experiences drastically. Women could only have one support person during the birthing process. In-person appointments were limited too.
Ensuring your pregnant employees have access to, say, unlimited time off allows them to take telehealth and other appointments. They can also sincerely work through the new emotions and uncertainties accompanying these new pregnancy experiences, which is critical in ensuring a healthy baby and healthy mom.
Even offering leave policies for physical health conditions that many employers feel are a “normal” part of life is worth considering. For example, women are expected to just “get through” their menstrual cycles. However, many women struggle with symptoms that can be so debilitating that it takes them away from work.
Offering a menstrual leave policy, like the one Victorian Women’s Trust offers, allows employees to work from home during their menstrual cycles or take advantage of a designated number of days off in the year to get relief from their menstrual cycle symptoms.
Gift Your Employees a Better Work-life Balance
Childcare and progressive leave policies enable you to gift your employees a better work-life balance. They won’t have to build their life around work. Instead, they can fit their work around their lives.
For example, getting married is a significant event in someone’s life. But not being able to celebrate or feed the marriage right away because you have to work can cause an immediate strain.
Adobe offers a marriage leave policy to all regular employees and full-time paid temps. They offer seven working days off for an employee’s own marriage and three days off if a child is getting married.
Work is just one part of someone’s life. They’ve got spouses, children, and passions to attend to outside their careers. So, covering childcare for your employees and offering advanced leave options will allow them to prioritize their life outside of work rather than having to put all things not work on the back burner.
Improve Your Company Culture
Quiet as it’s kept, the benefits and perks you offer your employees impact company culture.
You could offer them a big check and all the fancy tech, but it’s no replacement for culture. If they don’t have the support they need to nurture their holistic health and grow in their roles, they’ll eventually burn out and negatively affect your company culture.
Offering progressive leave policies allows your employees to nurture their mental and physical health, prompting them to do their best work and help you build a positive company culture.
Lyft is a good example of a company offering excellent leave policies. For instance, their salaried U.S. employees get unlimited paid time off. In addition, new biological, foster, and adoptive parents get 18 weeks of paid time off.
Access to this kind of leave allows employees to focus on their health, wellness, and happiness. This, in turn, helps them be the best they can be in their positions at this company. Thus, contributing to positive company culture.
Conclusion
Your employees deserve the best. But knowing this isn’t enough. Instead, you must do all you can to provide a company culture they can thrive in. Start by assessing your childcare and progressive leave policies.
