Paid Family Leave
What is Paid Family Leave?
Paid family and parental leave supports employees during family expansion, whether through childbirth, surrogacy, or adoption. To ensure true equity, policies should remain gender and caregiver-agnostic while offering supplemental recovery time for those who give birth. While unpaid job-protected time off is less costly for the employer in the short term, it creates significant financial strain and health risks for families that often force a premature return to work. Conversely, investing in paid leave secures long-term ROI by improving infant and maternal health outcomes while dramatically increasing employee retention and recruitment in a competitive market.
Investing in Your People: How Paid Family Leave Helps Strengthen Retention and Your Bottom Line
Attract Top Talent
Workers, especially younger workers - both men and women - consider benefits like paid family leave when considering new professional opportunities.
77% of workers take into consideration how much paid family time off is allowed when deciding where to work.
90% of Millennials and Gen Z workers state that reproductive health benefits are important as they enter the workforce.
Offering paid family leave has also been seen to increase a company’s diversity.
Improve Workforce Retention
Women are 93% more likely to return to work after taking paid family leave compared with women who do not have access to paid family leave.
After increasing its paid maternity leave by 6 weeks, Google found that turnover for women returning after childbirth declined by 50%.
Increase Productivity
A recent McKinsey study found that 100% of respondents who had taken paid family leave felt more motivated to stay with their employer and reported being more productive at work.
82% of companies that implemented paid family leave reported that their employees had a boost in morale and 63% of employers that implemented paid family leave policies reported an increase in productivity from their employees.
Maximize Financial Performance
Companies with a paid family and medical leave policy reported 2.5% higher profits than firms that do not.
On average, it costs 33% of a worker’s annual salary to hire and train a replacement employee. Lowering turnover has a materially positive impact on human capital expenses.
Improving a paid family leave policy tends to attract significant attention in the media, which can boost a company’s brand, especially when said company is an early mover in a particular industry, or if the company is offering a new or more expansive policy.