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You may be one of the many employers that already have a small business parental leave policy in place or you might be creating a new one from scratch. Whatever your reason for revisiting, revamping or creating your new policy, it’s always a good idea for forward-thinking organizations to consider a fresh, employee-first perspective.
In this article, I’ll reveal seven innovative ideas to consider as additions to your new small business parental leave policy. In 2024, employees expect comprehensive procedures to support the best parental leave policies. In this war for talent, you can be the company to give it to them.
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Parenthood is challenging both physically and psychologically, and new parents often face tough transitions upon their return to work. You can offer all of the leave—whether paid or unpaid—that you can afford, and the change will still be hard. The best small business parental leave policy will support employees in this period of transition by offering a phased return to work period.
Rather than requiring employees to jump back into full-time work immediately, employers have the option of offering a step-up or ramp-up approach to reintegration of work duties. If you choose to offer a phased return to work, implementation logistics can be as simple or as involved as you see fit.
You might go for a simple solution, like a four-day workweek, or something more intricate, like a stepped structure offering 20-hour work weeks upon an employee’s return and graduating to a full work week in 10-hour increments.
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Whether or not you already have a mentorship program or employee resource/affinity groups in place, consider opening up a new group to parents in your workplace. Parents struggling with work-life balance may find it relieving to be able to talk to someone who understands and has navigated similar issues before.
Gina Nebesar, chief product officer at family benefits platform Ovia Health, reports that, according to data collected by Ovia, “many people make the decision whether or not to return after parental leave while in the early stages of pregnancy.”
When parents consider whether to stay or leave their duties at work, they’re “looking around at their organizations and trying to find examples, specifically of leaders, that have the type of flexibility and work-life harmony that they’re looking for from that postpartum experience,” according to Nebesar. With this perspective taken into account, having a small business parental leave policy that offers new parents a support system at work could be a very effective tool for retention.
Your new small business parental leave policy should be updated periodically. The Providing Urgent Maternal Protections (PUMP) For Nursing Mothers Act was passed in December of 2022 and is effective for all employers that are also covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The provisions of the PUMP Act took effect right before the new year in 2023. If you’re not yet compliant with the act, it’s a good idea to understand and plan for your compliance as soon as possible. Once sorted, you can include your PUMP Act compliance in your employee handbook.
The PUMP Act requires employers to allow reasonable break times for an employee to express breast milk for a nursing child. Employers also must provide a place for employees to pump while at work. The place must be private and cannot be a bathroom (even a private one). The location must be shielded from view and free from intrusion from the public and any other employees. Employers must provide this time and space for a year after a child’s birth and during the employee’s entire workday.
Remote and hybrid workdays are great for parents if you can offer it. But even if parents are working from home, they still need childcare. When you consider whether you can provide remote and hybrid flexibility, remember the fact that parents can still produce high-quality work at home before or after the hours of 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.
Some work absolutely must be done in-office, and some work (like client-facing work) must be done during normal working hours. But not all work, like administrative tasks, has to be completed within these strict confines. Allow your working parents the freedom and flexibility to work around their schedules, including after they’ve put their children down for bed.
Many employers permit employees to take parental leave intermittently throughout the first 12 months of welcoming a new child. But it’s no secret that parenting is a time-intensive function that goes beyond the first year of a child’s life.
Consider allowing parents a certain number of “flex hours” each year to manage their parenting duties while still staying engaged at work. These hours can be used when childcare issues arise, when a child is sick, or to attend school functions and extracurricular activities. If you have the ability to offer flex hours as a benefit, your family-first culture will shine.
Another more inclusive approach to ensure that time off is readily available for parents is to evaluate the paid time off policy for your entire staff. Ensuring that the paid time off policy is generous across the board garners support from parents and non-parent employees alike.
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In seeking to establish a family-first culture, speak to your leadership and management about the messaging they’re delivering surrounding leave. Are they encouraging the full and complete use of your small business parental leave policy?
A simple change in language from a manager can make all the difference for an anxious new parent. For example, train managers and senior leadership to ask expecting parents “when” they are taking leave, not “if” they are taking leave. As part of your new parental leave policy, encourage leave for parents of any gender and at any “rank” within your company.
One of the most critical hurdles working parents must conquer is the high cost and low availability of childcare. As a small business, you don’t need to offer on-site childcare to help meet this need if it isn’t feasible for you.
You can offer flexible spending accounts (FSAs) to your employees. The pre-tax dollars in these accounts can then be used to cover dependent care, including summer camp, until a child is 13. Speak with an experienced employee benefits expert to learn more about how you can offer this valuable benefit.
RELATED: Eligible Summertime Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account Expenses
Looking to get the most out of your small business parental leave policy? Axcet HR Solutions can help you tackle this and a full suite of other HR tasks in a compliant, efficient way. Employee handbook policies and procedures are just the beginning of what we can take on together.
Axcet is a certified PEO (professional employer organization) that partners with small businesses to offer cost-effective HR outsourcing and consulting options. We’d love to see how we can work together to make HR run smoother for you. Schedule a conversation with the HR experts at Axcet today.
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