Earlier this year, the Society of Human Resource Management, the world’s largest HR professional society, released its annual survey of U.S. employers about the types of benefits they offer their employees.
The report included some interesting findings related to family-friendly workplaces:
- Retention is key. In the last 12 months, 72 percent of employers increased their benefits offerings to retain employees. These included family-friendly benefits, which are a proven way to attract and retain top talent.
- More organizations are offering paid parental leave. Paid maternity leave, which includes coverage by family or parental leave policies but excludes leave covered by short-term disability or state law, increased from 26 percent in 2016 to 35 percent in 2018. Paid paternity leave increased from 21 percent to 29 percent, adoption leave increased from 20 percent to 28 percent and foster child leave increased from 13 percent to 21 percent.
- But small businesses are less likely to offer paid leave. Although the prevalence of paid parental leave is increasing, larger organizations were considerably more likely to offer this benefit than smaller organizations. Paid maternity leave was offered by almost twice as many organizations with 10,000 or more employees than organizations with fewer than 500 employees. The same was true for other types of parental leave.
- Flex work is on the rise. More organizations are offering flexible working benefits, such as telecommuting, flextime and compressed workweeks. In fact, nearly 20 percent more employers allow some type of telecommuting than in 2014 (up to 70 percent versus 59 percent).
- Less than half of employers offer dedicated spaces for breastfeeding mothers to pump. Just 49 percent of organizations offer onsite lactation rooms. However, that’s still double the number or employers that offered lactation facilities in 2014, when only 28 percent had a room available.