Do you, by chance, offer your employees “Paw-ternity” leave? More seriously, how about NICU leave? With the ever-increasing reality that the federal government will offer no lifeline to streamline the ever-growing list of states mandating employee paid leave, employers have decided to take the lead, leading to a new wave of creative leave benefits to attract and retain talent.
Employers are on a quest to perfectly meld employee physical and mental health as well as financial wellness to offer benefits that lead to an emotionally, socially, and financially healthy workforce. This makes sense, since a recent report indicated that a whopping 60% of employees said that mental health benefits will factor into selecting their next job.
Leave to care for one’s own mental health is increasingly gaining momentum in the American workplace. In its 2024 “Leave of Absence and Workplace Accommodation Forecast,”AbsenceSoft, a leading cloud-based platform built to manage and track FMLA, STD, and LTD leaves as well as ADA accommodations, surveyed HR professionals who cited “managing mental health” as the most common reason cited for leave from work.
Mental health tops pregnancy, illness or injury, and caregiver leave as the most-commonly requested need for leave. Don’t believe me?
Bereavement Leave is a Must
Paid bereavement leave and meaningful additional time off work to deal with the loss of a family member or close friend has picked up a tremendous amount of momentum in the past five years.
The key next step? A federal bereavement leave law. Though a host of new states have enacted (unpaid) bereavement leave laws, a change in federal law seemingly is the only way to etch this benefit in stone once and for all.
In 2022, theSkimm, a media company, unveiled as part of the Company’s #ShowUsYourLeave initiative a database of the policies of 480+ companies, including American Express, Etsy, General Motors, Goldman Sachs, Pfizer, Zoom and more, all of whom are making their parental and paid leave policies open to the public. The resource is a free excel spreadsheet that allows the public to search and compare these leave benefits across industries.
If you need even more paid leave benefit ideas, access theSkimm database here.
Paid Leave Benefits Actually Makes Employers More Money
If your employees’ emotional, social, and financial well-being is not enough, providing paid leave benefits is worth it simply because it actually makes employers more money.
As Lori Welty, SVP, Product Compliance for FINEOS, “companies that implemented paid leave yielded 4.6% greater revenue and 6.8% greater profit for each full-time employee.” The reality is this: not providing these critical paid leave benefits, as Lori notes, causes a huge leakage in profits.
Some CA Required Leaves
- CA Family Rights Act “CFRA”
- Pregnancy Disability Leave (PDL)
- Paid Family Leave (PFL)
- Paid Sick Leave
- Bereavement Leave
- Reproductive Loss Leave
- Organ & Bone Marrow Donor Leave
- Crime Victim Leave
- Crime or Abuse Victims’ Leave
- Jury Duty or Witness Duty Leave
- School Appearance & Activity Leave
- Volunteer Civil Service Leave
- Voting Leave
If you are not sure what mandatory leaves are required in your location, JorgensenHR can assist you with mandatory leave information in all 50 states and most county and municipalities. Contact us at info@jorgensenhr.com or call us at 661-600-2070.
Source: Jeff Nowak Littler
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