Last month, Facebook announced a new family leave policy that raises the bar for other employers to support a more flexible work environment.
The policy expands the tech company’s already impressive slate of parental leave benefits to now include three additional offerings for its employees:
- 3 paid days off to help care for sick family members with short-term illnesses
- 6 weeks of paid leave to care for sick family members with longer-term health issues
- Up to 20 days of bereavement leave to grieve an immediate family member
- Unlimited job posts
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- And so much more!
- Up to 10 days of bereavement leave to grieve an extended family member
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How Facebook’s Family Leave Policy Is Changing the Game
Before beefing up its family leave policies last month, Facebook already had a relatively impressive parental leave policy. The tech giant offers four months of paid leave for birth and adoptive parents. The policy applies to both moms and dads, and is equally available to any parent, regardless of sexual orientation.
This initiative sends a message not just to other tech companies, but to employers in general about the importance of offering wide-ranging flexibility policies to their workers. It’s no longer sufficient to offer benefits to only a partial segment of your employee base, whether its only men, only women, only heterosexual parents—or even only parents—since different employees have different family situations with unique caregiving needs.
Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg, for example, who announced the new policy on February 7 in a Facebook post, lost her husband in 2015, and experienced firsthand the importance of employer-supported bereavement leave. Recognizing that people need far more than the standard three days off after losing a family member, Sandberg—with the support of CEO Mark Zuckerberg—upped the ante by offering nearly seven times more bereavement time than most companies offer.
Sandberg’s introduction of “paid family sick time” is also groundbreaking in corporate America. In most companies, sick days are only officially available for employees to use when recovering from their own illness, not to help a sick child or other family member.
Sandberg said it best in her announcement post: “People should be able both to work and be there for their families. No one should face this trade-off. We need public policies that make it easier for people to care for their children and aging parents and for families to mourn and heal after loss. Making it easier for more Americans to be the workers and family members they want to be will make our economy and country stronger. Companies that stand by the people who work for them do the right thing and the smart thing—it helps them serve their mission, live their values, and improve their bottom line by increasing the loyalty and performance of their workforce.”
Facebook clearly recognizes that when it comes to flexibility, one size doesn’t fit all. These proactive new policies will play a powerful role in helping Facebook employees achieve better work-life balance to facilitate their career growth alongside their family caregiving responsibilities.
Facebook’s announcement is a true game changer in the arena of family-friendly flexibility, easing what often seems like an impossibility for employees to integrate work and life without having to forfeit pay, pause their career track, or both. This is a call to action for all employers—whether in the tech industry or other fields—to step up and follow suit.
Looking to build a flexible work policy? Check out these four steps to create a formalized flex work policy at your company.
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