There is ample evidence that parental-leave policies for all new parents have myriad individual and organizational benefits. In fact, roughly 4 in 10 employers now offer paid parental leave, according to SHRM’s 2023 Employee Benefits survey. However, many men are still reluctant to use the benefit because they fear it will negatively impact their jobs or careers.
“There are a lot of benefits and not a lot of downsides to providing parental leave for new fathers. All of the research suggests that it helps businesses attract and retain productive workers, promotes worker commitment and facilitates greater gender equality,” said Richard Petts, sociology professor at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. “Despite these benefits, men are often discouraged from using it. A paid-leave policy is only useful if workers are not stigmatized and penalized for taking it.”
While working as a journalist at CNN, Josh Levs successfully sued his employer and its parent company Time Warner, claiming that its parental-leave policy discriminated against biological fathers. After his claim was settled, CNN changed its policy to make it more equitable and inclusive.
“It’s crucial to recognize that paid parental leave is not just a ‘women’s issue.’ It’s an issue for all parents and for everyone who understands the importance of including men and fathers in caregiving,” Levs said.
[SHRM members-only sample policy: Paid Parental Leave Policy]
“There is no one-size-fits all answer to how companies should structure their leave policies,” explained Emma Follansbee, an employment attorney with Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo in Boston. “Staying mindful of legal developments will ensure that a parental-leave policy benefits all employees and does not expose the company to legal risk or reputational damage.”
Follansbee offered the following guidelines to HR professionals who want to create legal, equitable and practicable policies:
- Clearly distinguish between parental-leave policies for child-bonding and medical-leave policies related to pregnancy and childbirth.
- Provide gender-neutral policies that apply equally to all new parents regardless of how they became parents (pregnancy/childbirth, adoption, surrogacy, foster, etc.).
- Carefully review the use of terms like “secondary” and “primary” caregiver. Don’t assume that the mother is the default primary caregiver.
“It’s important to create policies that accurately reflect organizational culture,” Follansbee said. “If a policy is technically available to fathers but men are discouraged from taking it, the policy is meaningless and may open the company up to claims of discrimination.”
Reducing the Stigma
Parental leave for new fathers typically goes unused because the stigmas around using it are more powerful than any law or policy, said Levs, who has become an advocate for men taking their full parental leave. “The hard work of culture change is to make sure that everyone understands that the company benefits from men taking their full leave.”
In his book, All In: How Our Work-First Culture Fails Dads, Families and Businesses—and How We Can Fix It Together (HarperOne, 2015), Levs cites numerous examples of men who have been punished, fired, demoted or lost job opportunities if they took or sought parental leave “because it seemed un-macho.”
Culture change begins at the top, he said. When senior leaders and managers elect to take their full leave, it sends the message that their employees can do so as well.
At Diageo, a global alcoholic beverage company headquartered in London with a significant presence in North America, HR rolled out its first family-leave policy in 2019. They offered six months of paid leave in every market to all employees regardless of gender or how they became parents. Although the policy immediately boosted engagement and turned out to be a major differentiator for recruitment and retention, some senior leaders were initially anxious and cautious about taking the full leave.
“We spent time encouraging senior leaders to take their parental leave and to role-model this benefit,” said Laura Watt, the company’s executive vice president of human resources in North America. “When senior men encourage their team members to take leave or they take leave themselves, and then come back and talk about their experience, it drives engagement, conversation and positive feedback.”
As more men take advantage of the policy, it becomes increasingly normalized for them to share their experiences when they return.
“I can’t think of anyone [who is eligible for parental leave] who didn’t take a significant amount of time since we introduced the policy. For many men, it’s been a life-changing experience,” Watt said. The company also found that when recruiters and other HR professionals took parental leave, it helped them advocate and sell the benefits of the policy from their own experience.
A recent McKinsey & Company report found that increasing transparency about the impact that parental leave has on career trajectory and promotion timelines can also help alleviate men’s concerns that taking leave will damage their careers.
HR professionals can further support and reinforce this practice by promoting the policy through various communication channels, such as the employee handbook, internal social media channels, company newsletters, training sessions and in 1:1 meetings with managers.
Managing the Transition
Transparency also aids preparation. When an organizational culture supports men taking their full leave, male employees are likely to feel more comfortable sharing that information with their manager or supervisor. This allows them to map out a transition plan together with reasonable timelines and expectations.
Joan Williams, founding director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California’s Hastings College of Law, encourages organizations to create a transition-out plan with the leave-taking employee that includes the following information:
- Detailed information about the employee’s duties and responsibilities.
- Progress reports and project timelines for their work.
- Identification of colleagues and co-workers who can fill in during the employee’s absence.
- Discussions about the best way to structure the employee’s return.
In diversity consultancy Seramount’s 2022 list of Best Companies for Dads, more than 75 percent of the employers offered “phase-back programs” with a gradual return to work following parental leave.
As part of its suite of gender-neutral parental-leave policies and tools, global law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner implemented a ramp-up policy for their U.S. attorneys with a three-month graduated return to work after an extended leave. The firm also plans to roll out a formal coaching program in September that includes a parental-leave toolkit (PLT).
“The PLT is an online coaching tool designed to support individuals and their managers throughout each stage of the parental-leave transition, ensuring that they are working towards the same goals and time frames,” said Hannah Kozlova Lindsay, the firm’s London-based chief people officer.
“We want to attract and retain the best talent, and our parental-leave policy helps drive that outcome,” she added. “We’ve found that these policies help keep our people motivated and engaged so that they can come back from their leave feeling empowered.”
Diageo North America positions its family-leave policy as a professional development opportunity for other employees. As part of their “internal secondment” policy, they advertise the leave-taking employee’s position internally as a “backfill” and encourage other employees throughout the company to apply.
“It’s a great opportunity for people to step up, try something different and grow from a talent perspective by expanding their skill set over that period,” Watt said.
Building a Healthy, Inclusive Culture
As co-founder and CEO of Pendo, a Raleigh, N.C., software analytics firm, Todd Olson found that a strong company culture with differentiated benefits can give smaller companies a competitive advantage in the tech sector.
Olson believes that Pendo’s decision to offer paid parental leave to all new parents has been instrumental in helping them attract and retain a diverse talent pool. “Supporting men helps women get back to work, if that’s what they want or need to do,” he said.
During the pandemic, research found that when men took longer parental leave, it helped reduce stress and level the playing field for their partners. From a financial perspective, it also helped increase mothers’ wages in the short term and families’ total financial well-being in the long term.
“When men take longer parental leave, two things happen,” Petts said: “Women return to work sooner, and men become more attuned to, and less tolerant of, those opportunity costs.”
Arlene S. Hirsch is a career counselor and author based in Chicago.