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According to recent reports, Facebook has updated his HR policy, by granting staff 4 months of paid parental leave.
Back in July, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder, revealed that his wife Priscilla Chan was pregnant with their first child, following three heart-breaking miscarriages.
Earlier this month, he announced that he would be on paternity leave for two months, following the upcoming birth of his daughter.
The decision came as a surprise to many, given that the Zuckerberg is one of the highest-paid and most famous Millennial CEOs, as the co-owner of a Fortune 500 company. It might have seemed likely that a baby wouldn’t deter him from continuing full steam ahead, without taking a much-needed break.
However, in a post published online at the time, he emphasized that fact that it’s crucial for parents to spend quality time with their newborn children in the first months, even if that means taking time off work, and putting career on hold for a while.
Now, the company headquartered in Menlo Park, California has introduced a new parental leave policy which will provide more extensive benefits for all of its employees following the birth of a baby.
More precisely, everyone working for Facebook will get to enjoy four months of parental paid leave, to be taken within a year following the baby’s birth, irrespective of where they might be located, and no matter what gender identity they might have.
Before, such advantages had already been in effect for some of the key staff in the United States, such as Tom Stocky, who currently holds the position of Vice President of Search at Facebook.
The executive, who had previously been employed by Google, was on a 4-month “baby” leave starting from April 2013, emphasizing at the time that gender equality like the one promoted by Facebook should become more broadly incorporated in other businesses as well.
Now, all of the company’s full-time staff will get this time off, in order to spend it in the presence of their newborn babies.
According to Lori Matloff Goler, Facebook’s vice president of Human Resources and Recruiting, this recently introduced measure was motivated by the need to support new fathers, as well as international employees who are engaged in same-sex relationships.
As Goler explained, this is all part of the company’s mission to provide support and flexibility to its staff every step of the way, especially when being faced with life-shaping events such as the birth of a child.
Research has determined that taking time off so as to spend it with infants is hugely beneficial not just to children, but also to families, no matter what structure they might have.
The parental leave policy, which will be implemented starting from January 1, 2016, will also extend to Facebook employees who have adopted children.
The first to benefit from this measure will be those who have become parents, following birth or adoption, starting from 2015, provided that they had been on the company payroll at the time.
Recently, other tech giants have also revamped their HR policies, in order to add more benefits for working parents. For example, Amazon currently provides 20 weeks of paid parental leave, Spotify offers 6 months, and Netflix promises up to a year’s worth of family leave following a baby’s birth or adoption.
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