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Maternity Benefits

To All -

I know this question has been posed in the past however I thought I'd bring it up again since the last entry on I see on the message board is from June of 2002.

So here it goes... we are an agency of 25 employees (with a net income of $4 Million) located in New Jersey and we are about to experience our first employee to go out on maternity leave. This particular employee has been here for 12 years and happens to be our top Account Supervisor. We also have a couple of other young women in our office about to get married and eventually have families with the intention of returning to work afterwards.

Currently we offer just what is required by law...12 weeks of unpaid leave with job protection however, I'm hoping to persuade management to put something together so that we don't lose these valuable employees.

I'm interested in knowing what your policy is on these benefits; length of leave, paid/unpaid, flex-time, telecommuting, etc. It would also be helpful to know the size and location of your agency as well as annual net income. (And not to leave out the men I'd be interested in paternity leave as well)

Thanks,

Kathi Sheehan

Hi,

Being from New Zealand our laws are vastly different from yours but thought I would share it with you anyway just as a point of reference.

In NZ Maternity leave is up to 52 weeks, the first 12 weeks of this is paid by the government to a max. of $350 per week. The rest is without pay, although some companies opt to top up the government payout to match salary or have allowances for more to be given in their contract. The company MUST keep the staff member's job open and can only hire a temporary contractor/staff member on a fixed term contract to cover them and the person on maternity leave can return at anytime with only 3 weeks notice, sometimes earlier than originally planned. Paternity leave is also part of this act so between both mother & father they can have up to 52 weeks off with guarantee of their job to come back to. This way a mother can be off six months and father then six months as long as the 52 weeks is not exceeded. Fathers can also have 2 weeks unpaid leave around the time of the birth. Some companies can argue that the position cannot be filled by a temporary person without huge interruption to business but most times this is inarguable and you would have to be the CEO or MD and Co. to prove it is impossible to function.

I didn't realize the laws in the US were so strict in terms of allowances for maternity leave. Some companies in countries even give staff members up to a year off with 50% of their salary. NZ is not by any means the leader in terms of generosity to continue the population.

I don't know if this is helpful but maybe good to know what other countries offer.

Regards,

Kris

Kristy Oxenham Financial Controller Robbins Brandt Richter Ltd

Does your company offer short and/or long term disability benefits? If not, group policies for such coverage are very cheap! We use GE Life Assurance.

The way our agency funds maternity leave is through our short-term disability policy. For this policy, a "disability" includes maternity leave. You have to make sure you request that your policy include maternity leave. Basically, an employee gets 70% of her weekly pay up to a weekly maximum of $1,000: these "disability" payments continue for 6 weeks for a vaginal birth and 8 weeks for C-section birth. (or it could be longer as long as a physician authorizes it).

Here is how it would work: A employee would take her maternity leave and then file a disability claim (immediately following the birth) At the end of the 6 or 8 week period, she has the option of then using any of her unused pto time (which is then paid at her full daily salary rate). One caveat about s-t disability benefits: because the employer pays 100% of the premiums, disability payments are then taxable to the claimants.

Also: You may only have this option for funding FUTURE maternity leaves of absences. I highly doubt a carrier would authorize a "pregnancy in progress", so to speak.

Also, with one of our employees who will go on maternity leave in July, she does not wish to return to work. I confirmed with GE that she is still entitled to receive her benefits. Thus, there is no subsequent reimbursement to the insurance carrier for these benefits.

Hope this helps.

Anna Parisi GBL, Inc.

Kathi -

We have had a plan in place for 10-12 years. We are currently 12 employees with annual revenue between 2-2.5 million and located in Connecticut.

We offer 3 paid days at the time of birth for male or female. "Mom" is then paid in full for the first two weeks. For each year she has been with the company she is entitled to a one week's pay up to 4 weeks at 100% pay; the remaining weeks at 80%. After 13 weeks if the Doctor certifies she can not return to work, she is covered by our long term disability plan. We allow a flexible schedule (both male and female) in the early years - min. of 24 hour work week with a proportional reduction in salary and benefits.

The President of our company was the first to use the policy - I hope it's as easy for you to persuade management!

Diane

We put together a short and long term disability policy covering all of our employees. Legally, having a child is considered a "disability" by all of the carriers we spoke with. This policy allows anyone leaving for maternity leave to collect 60% pay while on maternity leave ( I believe there is a 10 day waiting period which is usually covered by sick or vacation time. This also covers states that require companies to follow the same guidelines for men. Meaning any benefits given to women are also available to men, so if you gave them 12 weeks paid maternity leave the men should also have 12 weeks paid paternity leave.

Patrick Consolati Winstanley Associates

Kathi, FMLA requires that companies with 50 or more employees be given up to 12 weeks unpaid leave during a 12 month period. We are an agency of 14 so, like your company, we were faced with the same situation when our receptionist had to take maternity leave. We stayed in touch with her throughout her leave and kept tabs on when she expected to return to work. She had to pay the full amount of her health and STD premiums while she was out on leave, and she filed a claim with STD to cover a portion of her wages during her time off. When her doctor released her from STD, she returned to work, and the split between employer and employee portions of premiums resumed immediately. The only expense our company had during her leave was to pay a temp to come in and cover her position (althought not full-time). Also, our receptionist had only been with us just over a month when she announced that she was 5 months along - then she delivered 3 months after that. Unusual situation, but we managed to get through it. Hope that helps.

Terry L. Jones, Jr. Controller Harvey and Daughters, Inc.

HI

We are an agency of 7. Here we have 12 weeks unpaid leave, but you may use all your vacation/sick time as well during that time. Payment towards your health policy is paid by the employee during any unpaid time. All other benefits remain intact & paid by the agency.

Our owner is always open to negotiation. I can see her being open to a lot of options. But this is the actual policy. I think it always depends on the employee & what position they have. Currently I job share with another employee as a result of us having kids. It has worked very well for over 2 years now.

Good luck! These are important issues.

Christine

Kathi,

For paternity leave, we pay anyone with a birth 2 weeks (paternity included) we extend this by four weeks for the mothers but we had our attorney draw up the correct language to avoid discrimination problems.

We pay them 2 or 6 weeks of their regular pay depending on paternity or maternity leave. We do not count this towards their pto time. (personal time off)

We are a design firm with about 70 employees and we are out of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

I hope this helps!

Tracy Schafer Baker Associates