Families that have working parents, often complain about not being able to spend enough time with each other. However this doesn’t imply to the employees at Intel (INTC, Financial). The chipmaker has made headlines this month when it declared “an eight weeks” of paid bonding leave for all new parents, mothers and fathers alike.
Earlier as well, the company had declared a fully paid “13-week maternity leave” for new mothers. Quoting Intel’s vice president Ogden Reid, “the underlying interest was to strengthen families at Intel and also to support our renewed commitment to diversity and inclusion”.
The bliss of being a techie in Oregon
Tech employees are the most demanded in Oregon and elsewhere, and Intel’s new program is designed to improve the parental benefits package, that had previously been “average at best” as compared to the benefits offered by giants in the tech industry.
“We are competing against the likes of Apples (AAPL, Financial), Microsofts (MSFT, Financial), Googles (GOOG, Financial) and Qualcomms (QCOM, Financial),” Reid said. Silicon Valley is popular for providing generous benefits to its employees, from catered meals and free beers to daily chores of the employees like picking up laundry.
Katie Crocker, benefits manager at Oregon Health and Science University finds it exciting to see leaves getting more attention.
OHSU employees can subscribe to short-term disability insurance, which they can use to finance maternity leave.
That is similar to what Intel had already offered: the equivalent of a full salary during maternity leave to employees who spend up to a $60 a month on short-term disability coverage. Intel would be retaining this advantage for its employees as it adds the new bonding leave.
OHSU allows employees to carry over vacation time from year to year, so they can bank it for parental leave.
Laws for the leaves
Oregon is among 11 states, along with the district of Columbia, that have family leave laws, going beyond the 12 weeks of unpaid leave required by the Federal Family and Medical Leave Act, either by expanding the amount of leaves available or the eligibility criteria. The Oregon law covers workers at companies with 25 or more employees, compared to the federal threshold of 50 or more.
California was the first state to offer paid leave in 2004. A new mother can get up to 6 weeks of recovery time after giving birth, plus 6 weeks of additional family leave. While on leave, the employee receives 55% of usual pay, up to $1,075 per week in 2014. The law of New Jersey provides as much as of two thirds of wages, whereas the Rhode Island’s program, which begun last year provides a considerable 60% of wages.
All three states manage the claims and benefits by levying a payroll tax on the employees as well as through their state disability insurance program.
Conclusion
Such comprehensive programs could get expensive in a hurry, said Crocker. Overall, the workforce of Oregon is split just about evenly between men and women. At Intel less than a third of its employees are female.
But two third of OHSU’s employees are women, and Crocker said a high proportion of those are of child-bearing age and could therefore be eligible for expanded leave.
“A policy like that is going to hit us a bit harder than at a place like Intel”, she said. “Health care just seems to attract more females”.
Smaller businesses say they can’t afford the extras, and activists are making statewide paid sick days a higher priority than paid parental leave this legislative session. In the wake of such events Intel looks like a heaven for the employees and undoubtedly the tech giant is leaving no stone unturned in creating the best place to work ambience. This should be great news for the investors and patrons of Intel since high employee satisfaction levels help churn out more productivity and less attrition cost, hence that will obviously impact the business numbers positively.
