Update parental leave policy
This MR
This MR:
- updates the parental leave policy to be 16 weeks
- encourages parents to take "the time they need"
- does not affect the additional 4 weeks unpaid offer
The Business Case for 16 week Parental Leave
- By increasing paid parental leave at GitLab to 16 weeks, the company sets itself up to be in the top 15% of employers offering this benefit, a huge competitive advantage in this hiring landscape. The result: improved employer branding.
- By increasing paid parental leave at GitLab to 16 weeks, parents, especially women, taking the leave are more likely to be retained long-term. The result: improved employer retention, leading to decreased hiring costs and increased diversity.
- Women who take paid maternity leave are more likely to be in the workforce a year later (Source).
- Men take paternity leave at twice the rate and for longer periods of time when the leave is paid (Source).
- When men and women have the opportunity to take paid leave, it can help counteract gender caregiving stereotypes, neutralize stigmas and promote equity in the home and office (Source).
Background
GitLab's current Parental Leave Policy, as outlined on the Benefits page, offers GitLabbers 12 weeks of paid parental leave and then encourages them to take less than the full time (eight to twelve weeks). GitLabbers looking to extend their parental leave by 4 additional weeks are welcome to do that unpaid.
It concludes by highlighting:
You are entitled to and need to comply with your local regulations. They override our policy.
Using PeopleOps identity data (from December 2018), the team is bucketed into 4 parts:
- Employees in the US
- Employees in the UK
- Employees in the Netherlands
- Employees in other countries
(Skipping the US for now).
UK
According to Gov.UK, an official government resource ("Built by the Government Digital Service" in footer), Maternity Leave
Statutory Maternity Leave is 52 weeks. It’s made up of:
- Ordinary Maternity Leave - first 26 weeks
- Additional Maternity Leave - last 26 weeks
When you take time off because your partner’s having a baby, adopting a child or having a baby through a surrogacy arrangement you might be eligible for:
- 1 or 2 weeks’ paid Paternity Leave
- Paternity Pay
- Shared Parental Leave and Pay
Under certain criteria there is also Shared Parental Leave
You and your partner may be able to get Shared Parental Leave (SPL) and Statutory Shared Parental Pay (ShPP) if you’re having a baby or adopting a child.
You can share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay between you.
You need to share the pay and leave in the first year after your child is born or placed with your family.
It would appear the UK Parental Leave Policy is more generous that GitLab's at time off, but paid leave for all parents is directly related to the gender of the parent.
Netherlands
According to Business.Gov.NL which also appears to be an official government resource ("Business.gov.nl is the Dutch Point of Single Contact (PSC) for entrepreneurs serving the goal of the European Union (EU) to improve the internal market via a Single Digital Gateway (SDG)." in the footer),
Pregnant employees are entitled to 4-6 weeks pregnancy leave (before the due date) and at least 10 weeks maternity leave (after childbirth). If your employee takes less than 6 weeks pregnancy leave before the birth, she is entitled to add the remaining amount (up to 2 weeks) to her maternity leave after the birth. If the baby is born later than the due date, the employee's maternity leave begins after the actual birth and may therefore be longer than 16 weeks.
(I am unclear as to how this leave is paid, as the official links I've found all appear to lead to pages in Dutch.)
As of 1 January 2019, if the partner of an employee gives birth, the employee has a right to partner/parternity leave following the birth. Partner/paternity leave is the number of working hours in one week (previously 2 workdays). This paid leave can be taken any time in the first four weeks after the birth of the child. During this period of leave you must continue to pay 100% of the employee's salary.
It would appear the Dutch Maternal Leave Policy is more generous that GitLab's, though the partner leave policy is less generous. It is unclear if the partner leave policy has a 1 year work requirement, which GitLab's policy does have.
United States
In the US, Maternity Leave is granted by FMLA which only requires that employers of a certain size to allow mothers to take 12 weeks unpaid leave. Thirty eight states have additional policies that require more than the federal government.
GitLab's policy is much more generous than the minimum required by law.
Improved employer branding
This interactive presentation shows paid parental leave in the United States is still a problem. Sixty percent of companies in the data set offer 0-9 weeks of paid maternity leave and 85% offer 15 weeks of less. By increasing paid parental leave at GitLab to 16 weeks, the company sets itself up to be in the top 15% of employers offering this benefit.
This change would reinforce that GitLab values work/life balance, flexibility, and family first.
This would also help establish GitLab as a truly global organization, meeting not just the bare minimum for parental leave based on locality, but also helping raise the bar for the entire tech industry.
Given that there is already an unlimited vacation policy, four additional weeks away, while difficult for a team, is not much more significant than 12 weeks.
Improved employee retention
Given that the actual cost of replacing an employee can be three times that employee's salary (Source), it is clearly in the best interest of the organization to retain employees instead of replacing them. Evidence suggests that women who take paid maternity leave are more likely to be in the workforce a year later (Source), and thus are more likely to be retained employees instead of lost employees.
This policy also helps minimize different paid parental leave times amongst team members because of locale, which could lead to improved retention.
Financial Impact
I tried to estimate the financial impact of such a policy to GitLab.
- According to one estimate, about 60% of the population will become parents over some point of their lifetime.
- A simple calculation then is that 60% of employees may take parental leave at some point in their tenure; then I'd suggest:
median yearly salary / 52 * 4 * (# of employees*.6) * 2.3. This formula would assume that weekly salary * 4 weeks of extra leave * the 60% of employees who would take it * the average number of times they would take it. This calculates the lifetime impact. - A better way to do this calculation may be off historical data on what leave has traditionally been taken (e.g. what % of GitLabbers actually take parental leave each year and what countries are they from) in order to better understand the impact. I am happy to aid in data analysis, if I can have guidance on acquiring the appropriate data.
- Without being able to estimate the amount of leave taken it becomes hard to understand how these costs could be offset by increased employee retention.
As a note, this MR does not affect the 1 year requirement for GitLabbers to be eligible for parental leave.
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