how can we make our benefits more inclusive?

by Alison Green on October 13, 2022

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes:

Would you please consider throwing this out to the readers?

Our U.S.-based organization wants to make our benefits offering more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. We’re taking the steps outlined below, and, I wondered if the excellent AAM readers have any other ideas.

1) Expanded Medical Coverage – Providing gender dysphoria coverage through our medical plan for trans individuals.

2) Expanding Sick Leave – Sick leave is being rebranded to Sick & Care Leave. Employees will be able to take off when they are ill, anyone in their domicile is ill (including pets), or when they need to care for someone in a close relationship. Close relationship is not defined with a specified list; rather employees will be trusted to only request this when appropriate and managers will address it if they suspect something is off.

3) Expanded Bereavement Leave – The current policy limits bereavement to a specified list of relationships. That is being expanded to anyone the employee had a close relationship with. A single day of bereavement leave will be provided for a deceased pet, whereas everyone gets three days for the loss of a human.

4) Expanding fertility benefits to all employees instead of heterosexual married couples.

5) Changing our 401(k) retirement contributions – Currently a 100% company match on first 6% of compensation. This is being changed to a 3% non-elective contribution everyone will receive, regardless of whether or not they participate in the 401(k) Plan, and then having a 50% match up to 6% of compensation (if an employee defers 6% of pay, they get 3% company match; if an employee defers 4% of pay, they get 2% company match.)

6) Expanding adoption benefit to include surrogacy as well.

I am advocating for a student loan benefit as well, but management elected to wait and see what impact the federal relief provides before moving forward.

Readers, please share your thoughts in the comments!

You may also like:
{ 909 comments }

{ 909 comments… read them below }

  1. Foreign Octopus*

    My first thought is making sure that the people who are not Christian have the opportunity to take their religious holidays off without having to use PTO (i.e. Yom Kippur, the Eids, etc.). That would be a great thing to do.

    2. Roscoe da Cat*

      I came here to second that. I would suggest a certain number of non-PTO days each year which can be used for religious holidays or events (I added in events for those who don’t practice religion)

      1. Presea*

        +1. This is a leave bucket that should have relatively strict guidelines on its use, perhaps with the aid of a lawyer or some sort of subject matter expert(s), so that there is equity among religious employees of all stripes as well as non-religious employees; employees who are religious may want to use this time off bucket for non-religious events, for example. Or maybe the non-religious category can be something other than ‘events’, but I’m not sure what would be appropriate.

        1. Jules the 3rd*

          My employer has Company Holidays for each country + in the US, 4 or 5 “Personal Choice” holidays (depends on whether July 4th is 1 or 2 days) + employee’s PTO. It doesn’t need strict guidelines on its use, just universal availability. As an atheist, I just use them like regular PTO, but I know coworkers who use them for Eids and Yom Kippur.

          The key is that taking those days off is normalized and doesn’t require extra work. They’re automatically available days off.

        2. amethyst*

          It doesn’t have to. My company has “floating holidays” – they’re just a few non-PTO days that do not rollover each year but otherwise have no restrictions on their use. Basically…just don’t ask what the holidays are for. Just give everyone a few extra days and they can use it as they see fit.

          1. plumerai*

            We do have to give some sort of explanation, and people have been denied. We’re allowed to use our birthday as one, and then the atheists like me are stuck trying to figure out an OK use for the other. I have used Christmas Eve before with no questions asked, and Indigenous People’s Day this year. (I am part indigenous but look white and check “white” on HR forms, so our HR folks wouldn’t know it.)

      2. Michelle Smith*

        Thank you for saying this. My previous employer gave 4 days a year for religious observance that you can use whenever you like and while I fully support that, I also felt like the wording of the policy meant I couldn’t use them (as an atheist). I eventually ended up taking Good Friday anyway, even though I am no longer observant, but I would have felt more comfortable if they just made the policy clear that everyone could use them.

        1. Mm*

          Yea, I think the best way version of this is “floating holiday” and then a really long list of options. Include non-religious ones like “Caesar Chavez day” or the day after/before Thanksgiving.

          I do think float holidays that you use or lose are better than extra PTO in this case.

          1. Gary Patterson’s Cat*

            That’s what my company calls it.
            We all get 5 floating holiday per year and can be used for any day off. Only stipulation is that you must take the whole day, and they don’t rollover.

            1. Caroline+Bowman*

              Best and simplest option. You use, it must be a complete day and it doesn’t roll over.

              I worked at a place that gave 4 of these and called them Personal days.

            2. Cedrus Libani*

              Mine does this too. We get a few company-wide holidays, including December 24 and 25, but it’s mostly left up to the individual. The floating holidays have to be used in their calendar year, which encourages PTO-hoarders to actually take a few days off. (I just use the floating holidays first, if I have them available – there’s no rule against using them for a sick day, even if it’s a same-day decision.)

            3. Lab Boss*

              Ours is essentially the same. Everyone gets the same number of floating holidays and can’t roll any over (both of which are impacted by job tenure for normal PTO), and they have to be at least half-day increments.

              One messaging misstep when we started doing it this way: the company tried to give a big laundry list of examples of what you might use floating holidays for. The INTENDED message was that you could make a “holiday” out of effectively anything, but a lot of people took it to mean “you must be able to define your floating holiday as something from this list.” Good intention, poorly thought out initial execution.

            4. AcademiaNut*

              I like that.

              Giving *more* holidays to some employees than others based on their religion is going to be problematic (probably illegal, but IANAL). Giving flexibility so that people can take their religious holidays off, or use if for other stuff, is better.

              As a leave type, it’s close to a sick leave then normal vacation time. In many jobs, your vacation request can be denied due to coverage issues or crunch times, but sick leave has to be honoured because you’re not able to come to work.

              Personal days are for things that can’t be rescheduled – religious observances would be one, but also things like dealing with a plumbing emergency, or an important event at your kid’s school, or some one-off family related commitment. So having those be separate from regular vacation time and not rolling over makes sense.

          2. Big Bank*

            PTO = Floating holiday in my company, so I’m lost on this distinction. Regardless of what you call it, a bucket of days that is sufficient to allow people to take their major personal religious holidays off is the goal. And if it’s possible to let people work the default Christian holidays (which for me is just Christmas, but other places give Easter) then they should earn a comp day that they can use on their own religious day (or non religious whatever day for us atheists).

            1. Temperance*

              Floating holidays are typically separate from PTO, and need to be taken in a full-day capacity. The idea is that they’re a “holiday”, you just pick the date.

              1. Koalafied*

                And it varies by company, but there’s also sometimes a stipulation that you can’t use more than 1 or 2 consecutive days as a floating holiday, or that you can’t bookend a longer vacation that you used PTO for with a floating holiday on either end to save 2 PTO days.

                1. That'sNotMyName*

                  As an observant Jew, I would hope the limit is at least two days. Nearly all of our no-work holidays are two consecutive days.

            2. Wintermute*

              The biggest distinctions I’ve seen between the two tend to be A) floating holidays do not roll over. B) Floating holidays used for religious observance are only denied when it’s truly unavoidable (some places the DEI people review denials to ensure there are no patterns as well, or require more justification from managers that deny them than they would for regular PTO) and may be subject to special procedures (exempt from ‘you have to find your own coverage’ requirements, etc) C) must be taken in full-day increments D) are allotted in full on the first of the year or on a quarterly basis rather than accrued on an hours/pay period basis

          3. turquoisecow*

            Yeah my company has one of these. Some people wanted President’s Day off because their kids had off from school and some people didn’t because it’s not really a celebrated holiday so why not work it. The company made it a floating holiday so if you want it off you don’t have to use PTO and if you do not want it off you can take some other day without using PTO.

          4. Crazy Plant Lady*

            As someone from a minority religion, floating holidays to me do not actually give me anything extra for having religious days off. Those of the dominant religion or no religion get extra days off. I have to use them to celebrate my holidays so I do not.

            The only way I’ve seen it done fully equitably (IMHO) is when religious holidays are allowed off on request. We didn’t have a specific number of days. It applied to both salaried and hourly employees. You had to request them from your manager, but I never saw or heard of anyone having an issue with this (obviously with bad management it could be – but that’s a bigger issue).

            It meant I could have Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur off, plus leave a bit early when I was hosting Passover Seder to prep. A colleague was off for Diwali. Others took Good Friday off and came in late on Ash Wednesday. We didn’t have to make up the time or eat into any PTO or floating holidays. It felt so much more inclusive to me than any floating holiday ever could.

            1. Calliope*

              Sorry I find this kind of offensive. Non-religious people may also have obligations that they need to use their PTO for that isn’t a “fun” day off. Floating holidays allows everyone to prioritize those in their life. Just allowing religious days off in request doesn’t.

              1. J*

                As a devout atheist myself, I’m left wondering: why are you offended at a more inclusive policy?

                You can use the exact same policy to your advantage. If you believe in electricity, then we both believe in a higher power that can’t always be seen. Spiritual can be interpreted as an emotional and social well-being. Tell your manager that you are ‘spiritual’, which can include non-religious motivations like an interest in doing good for goodness’ sake. Do some volunteering. Take a birthday off for yourself or a household member and just call it a spiritual day. Take a memorial day to remember a lost parent. Make up a new tradition of taking off the middle day of summer (or a solistice) to have an adult version of a “spree day”. You’ll feel better spiritually having done it; or at least emotionally!

                1. Calliope*

                  Uh because “you can take religious holidays off without using PTO” is not going to be interpreted as take some time off to reflect, take your birthday off, or volunteer. That’s 100% my point. If the policy was phrased to allow those things I would be fine with it.

                  And don’t lecture me. I absolutely take time off to volunteer and for similar commitments. That’s my whole point about religion not being the only reason people need time off.

                2. Spencer Hastings*

                  “If you believe in electricity, then we both believe in a higher power that can’t always be seen.”

                  Oh, come the &$@% on.

                  But people are really talking past each other here — some people are suggesting that this be done as a religious accommodation (thus, non-religious people don’t get an equivalent), and others are suggesting it as a benefit. Determining which of those paradigms is in play is a prerequisite for determining what is a fair or reasonable way to implement it. (Not to mention legal — IANAL, but “sincerely held religious belief” is a term of art that comes up in these discussions for a reason.)

                3. Ace in the Hole*

                  I don’t think this is a very reasonable or fair argument. Effectively, you’re saying non-religious people can still have days off if they lie about the reason for requesting leave.

                  If I want to take a day off for myself, a family member, or a personal commitment… I shouldn’t have to lie and claim I’m doing it because of a spiritual obligation. Your suggestion is equivalent to saying people shouldn’t have an issue with all paid holidays being christian since they can call out sick to get time off for a religious holiday because it affects their spiritual health. It’s a way to work around an non-inclusive policy, not evidence that the policy is actually equitable.

                  If a policy is worded such that it grants additional paid time off for religious observances/holidays, that policy is discriminatory towards people whose religious beliefs do not include holidays (including atheism, but also a number of theistic faiths).

                  I don’t see how it is more inclusive or equitable to offer people extra paid time off based on their religion. Instead, why not just offer a large enough pool of PTO that everyone can take the days they need? My employer offers 14 paid floating holidays, 12 vacation days, plus a separate pool of sick leave. That’s 26 days off per year that can be taken any time… which should be plenty to accommodate just about any religion, but if it weren’t we would work out an accommodation for additional unpaid leave or modified work schedule.

              2. Medusa*

                Nothing that this person said implied that non-religious people have nothing to take time off for besides fun days off. I’m so lost as to how this comment could be construed as offensive. Religious people also use PTO for commitments. Crazy Plant Lady is talking about religious accommodation for people whose religions aren’t given federal time off.

                1. Calliope*

                  There’s one religious holiday that is a federal holiday. Most seriously religious people bht not all take additional days. So you’re talking about religious vs. non religious people not one religion being more recognized than others.

            2. Temperance*

              That’s not really equitable, though. It’s providing additional paid time off for a limited number of folks based on their religious beliefs.

              1. Madeleine Matilda*

                Not everyone is going to be able to take advantage of every type of special leave, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t offer it to those who need it. We provide time off for people to take parental leave when they have children. Should people who don’t have children be given an equivalent amount of time off every so many years? Some workplaces provide additional time off to vote. Should non-voters also get that time off? I don’t think they should. Similarly people who wish to exercise their right to practice their chosen religion should be given leave to do so. Just because someone else chooses not to practice a religion doesn’t mean religious leave shouldn’t be offered.

                1. Firefighter (Metaphorical)*

                  Yes, this is beautifully put. I am an atheist, but I would think of this as equivalent to carer’s leave – you have to take the time to fulfil obligations of care to your deity/religious community, obligations that atheists don’t have, just like non-parents don’t need parental leave. In Australia, some workplaces have a category of paid time off for “cultural obligations” for Indigenous employees, which is similar.

                2. John*

                  I disagree with your premise – I would absolutely say people without children should be given the same amount of time off as people with children. If it was very important to an employee that they have 6 months off in order to hike the Appalachian trail, I would take that as seriously as someone who needed 6 months of maternity leave – who am I to say that one person’s life goal is more important than another?

                  Having children or practicing a faith are personal choices – the workplace should offer flexibility to support people in their choice, but they shouldn’t be encouraging or discouraging one choice above another by rewarding it with additional time off or monetary benefits.

                  Voting is I think different because voting is a civic duty that society/the employer wants to specifically encourage and reward.

                3. JM60*

                  Firefighter (Metaphorical)*

                  you have to take the time to fulfil obligations of care to your deity/religious community, obligations that atheists don’t have

                  Many religious holidays aren’t about (or aren’t primarily about) fulfilling an obligation. On Christmas for instance, my religious obligation when I was Catholic was only to attend Mass, which roughly takes ~1.5 hrs. The main reason for wanting that day as a paid day off (beyond generally enjoying not working) are reasons other than religious obligations (e.g., enjoying time with family who are also have time off). Since I became an atheist, my reasons for wanting Christmas off have mostly remained the same, except I don’t spend a portion of the day at church.

                  It would be great if my employer would allow people to take another paid day off instead of Christmas if they want, but as an atheist, I would be furious if my company said that only Christians get a paid day off on Christmas.

                4. Firefighter (Metaphorical)*

                  @JM60 ( I seem to have run out of nesting?) – yeah, this is where it gets tangled in places where one religion has shaped the national calendar! Australia shuts down over Christmas and Easter and I value the quiet time, plus I guess if you have family it’s good to have a specified period when you can rely on all having time off simultaneously. In theory that “shutdown time” wouldn’t have to be tied to religion but… not really expecting to see that change in my lifetime so it’s moot.

                5. lyngend (canada)*

                  In Canada we have government paid leave for 1 year. I will pay into this every year, and I don’t really mind it. But I don’t plan on having children. I would really appreciate it if I could take some time off at least 1 time in my life under a similar leave without climbing a mountain of paper proving I need time off (for example, it’s extremely hard to prove a toxic workplace if you quit. and it can be hard to get time off for medical reasons.) I personally in the past would have used it to recover from toxic work places while looking for a new job. Now, I’d use it to go back to school for 1 “year” without working (I cannot manage a full time job and school at the same time. plus they occur at the same time) while using savings or loans to cover the costs the ~60% I’d get on a mat leave equivalent doesn’t cover.

            3. another Hero*

              I know people (admittedly in a small company and one where there are things to do when other workplaces are closed) who have only floating holidays, at least for religious holidays. So you can elect not to work Christmas and use one of your holidays, but it isn’t default. I assume this would be difficult to implement in a larger company or, say, a sales department, but it’s what I understand when people talk about switching to floating holidays.

              1. Calliope*

                This is what my last office did. Not Christmas but you could work on more “minor” federal holidays – Columbus Day, President’s Day, MLK Day, and/or Veteran’s Day – and swap them for another day on the next year. It always seemed fair to me.

            4. GrumpyGus*

              Seconding this. My company increased our number of personal days so that everyone could comfortably take off religious holidays or other days of significance and I’m delighted to not have to dip into my PTO for the Jewish High Holy Days. But every time a Christian colleague uses a personal day as a mental health day or for other reasons, I admit I get a little bitter that they get those “extra” days because their holidays are already taken care of.

              1. Calliope*

                I feel like there’s a flaw here in that not everything we take time off work for it just pure fun and nor will it ever be whether we’re religious or not? I mean first of all, plenty of observant Christians do end up taking Good Friday or Ash Wednesday off. So these comments always seem like they’re aimed at non-religious people. And yeah we don’t “have” to use our days off for religious observance but everyone has stuff going on in their lives that may warrant a day off that isn’t sitting by the beach. Like, if it’s important to you and enhances your life, that’s a value in and of itself and the chance to take those days should be distributed equally.

                1. Spencer Hastings*

                  I think the point people are making is that religious people have all that stuff *plus* their religious observance.

                2. GrumpyGus*

                  I agree with this! And I suspect my reactions are coming from a company where Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the Monday after Easter are company holidays. If that wasn’t already the case (and I’m seeing from the conversations below that that might be unusual), I would feel much differently.

                3. Calliope*

                  I understand that and I’ve never worked at a place that got Christmas Eve or any time around Easter off so that would affect my thinking. And honestly I wouldn’t even care if I worked at a place that said “just take as much time off as you need for religious observance.” I think that’s a nice and reasonable thing to do for your employers.

                  What I have an issue with is the idea that floating holidays specifically aren’t a “fair” way of handling it because some people don’t use them for religious observance. That’s also a reasonable way of handling things and an employer isn’t required to make up for the fact that one person spent MLK day volunteering and another worked it and spent another day at services but would rather also have volunteered the first day.

              2. Green Beans*

                But even then, you get huge variances between religions on how many holidays they observe, and then you get non-observant people who don’t observe any at all. In my company, the only Christian holiday we get off is Christmas and usually a half-day Christmas Eve. That’s not a huge amount and non-Christian employees can treat them as mental health days (I do.)

                And presumably there is some benefit to taking time off for religion observations for the employee, same as there is for mental health days. There’s just no perfectly fair way to give everyone their holidays off.

                1. Chirpy*

                  I mean…we could give everyone every religion’s major holidays off. Atheists and non-holiday-observant people can do whatever they want on those days, but then everyone gets the same number of holidays off.

              3. LittleDoctor*

                Honestly as someone with a major mental illness, I find the phrasing around mental health days by people who don’t have any mental sickness kind of degrading. I often have to take sick days because I’m hallucinating or delusional and can’t safely work, or because I’m in hospital. For me it’s actual sick days because I am actually sick. The teehee mental health days thing is really grating when you’re someone who is really not well. I don’t oppose days for prioritizing your mental wellness at all but I wish it wasn’t phrased like that.

                2. allathian*

                  I don’t have a mental illness currently, although I have had depression in the past. So yeah, “mental health days” feel like they trivialize mental illness. That’s why when I take a day or two off after a really stressful week or month, I tend to call them “decompression days” or something similar.

                  That said, I have *a lot* of vacation compared to most employees in the US, so our system is set up in a way that ensures that the vast majority of employees have someone who’s been cross-trained to handle their most crucial tasks, and employers have to hire enough employees for this legally required coverage. This also means that someone taking a vacation doesn’t cause hardship for others, as long as they don’t schedule their long vac in the middle of a particularly busy season, which a manager would usually not approve.

                3. Some Bunny Once Told Me*

                  Cosigned all day long and twice on the days where I’m manic as hell and can’t safely make it to work.

            5. Wintermute*

              The problem with just giving them to everyone is that it can run into discrimination issues. Since PTO is considered a benefit someone whose religious holidays are already default days off for the company gets no additional days and that could well be considered discriminatory.

              Giving everyone the same thing is the best way to avoid treating people differently based on their religion.

              1. LlamaDuck*

                So, my question is, how common is it for the Christian holidays to be off automatically?

                Professionally, I’ve mostly worked in hospitals and other emergency settings where there are no default days off. So, I wonder how common is it outside of essential services contexts for everyone to get Christmas and Easter off? Because I can definitely see that throwing off the system. Everyone getting national holidays off, for example.

                1. New Commenter*

                  To answer your question, every office job I’ve had has major Christian holidays (Christmas Day, Christmas Eve, and Easter) off as a default.

                2. Wintermute*

                  I’ve worked mostly for places that didn’t take ANY days off (cellular carriers on the tech side) or places that did every federal bank holiday (banks and insurers).

                  For either of those it wouldn’t work all that well, for the cell company because you can’t have that many people off at once no matter the reason and the financial institutions because it would just be cruel and pointless to make people come in to the office just so they don’t get a day off when there’s literally no work to be done because everything is closed including stock markets and the federal reserve file transfers.

                3. Calliope*

                  I have only ever had Christmas off. Not Christmas Eve or anything around Easter. Though I guess I’ve never had regularly scheduled work hours on a Sunday so I have had Easter off by default. My sense is this varies a lot regionally. My (Muslim) Canadian coworker was shocked when he learned we didn’t get a four day weekend aroubs Easter.

                4. Turtles All the Way Down*

                  Christmas Day is a federal holiday. That’s the only religious day I’ve gotten off as an adult (9-5 jobs), although depending on the company and area of the country, some have Good Friday or Easter Monday off.

                5. No Longer Looking*

                  The most common paid holidays in the US (both in my experience and according to a quick Google) are:
                  New Year’s Day
                  Memorial Day
                  Independence Day
                  Labor Day
                  Thanksgiving Day
                  Christmas Day

                  Most of the companies I’ve worked for also provided the day after Thanksgiving and the day before Christmas. Of the list, only Christmas is a JudeoChristian holiday, though New Year’s Day is a religious day for some I believe (orthodox saint’s holiday and I think some pagan sects though mostly those use a lunar calendar).

                6. Not My Cabages!*

                  This is being nitpicky, but to No Longer Looking, please don’t refer to Christmas as a “Judeo-Christian” holiday. Jewish people don’t celebrate Christmas, unless they’re joining a friend or inlaw family celebration. The term judeo-Christian is actually both antisemitic and Islamophobic. (This is something I didn’t know until last year!) if you google search about it a great article from hey Alma will show up detailing the history of that phrase, it’s fascinating.

                7. Ace in the Hole*

                  It varies a lot. My experiences have been…

                  Public university: all major Christian holidays were default days off, because school winter/spring breaks aligned with Christmas and Easter. Also got quite a few non-religious holidays off (thanksgiving, new years, independence day, etc) for the same reason. Depending on position, these might be paid days off, unpaid days off, and there might or might not be options to work those days in exchange for a floating holiday.

                  Restaraunt: no one got any paid holidays. Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving were mandatory unpaid days off because the restaurant was closed. In this case it was not the employer’s preference, it was because one of our major suppliers would not deliver on those days.

                  Retail: No one got any paid holidays, store did not close for any holidays

                  Local government (garbage): six major holidays are semi-closed, run with a skeleton crew and limited services. These include Christmas and Easter, plus several secular holidays. People can work these days in exchange for an extra floating holiday. If the day falls on a normally scheduled day off (i.e. your “weekend”), you also get it as a floating holiday. We also get a substantial number of floating holidays/vacation days that can be used any time.

                8. amethyst*

                  At my company we all get Christmas and Christmas Eve off, but none of our other holidays (at least in the U.S.) are religious.

            6. JugglingPlunger*

              One solution is to do floating holidays, but require that they be used for all religious holidays. I work for a hospital and we get quite a lot of PTO, but we also have to use PTO for all holidays – the hospital’s open on Christmas (though they’re not doing elective surgeries and office visits) so everyone who’s not working gets charged a PTO day. To make this work you’d have to make it possible for people from minority religions to work on Christmas, but in a lot of workplaces that’s becoming easier and easier.

            7. amethyst*

              I mean, you do get extra days off…the days that your religion doesn’t celebrate.

              If everyone gets the same amount of regular holidays and you get to request additional days off, then you’re the one getting additional days off.

            8. Jane*

              I see what you mean, but while Christians are celebrating, for example, Christmas, you could just use it as a day off. While you are using a floating holiday to celebrate a religious holiday of your own, they can just use it as a day off. I believe it ends up working out the same, except you wouldn’t be able to choose the days you get as “freebies” because they are pre-chosen Christian holidays. That’s the part that is unfair. :/

        2. Allura Vysoren*

          One of the very few things my previous employer did right was giving everyone a “personal floating holiday” that you could use basically whenever. One of my coworkers wanted to use it for the first day of deer hunting season. I was going to use it as a bonus day off for a convention that I attend every year. If you wanted to take your birthday off, you could use it for that.

      3. ecnaseener*

        Yes, or at least make sure not to just mirror the legal language about “sincerely held religious belief,” that’s much too narrow – maybe “religious and/or cultural events” would be good if they balk at just “events.”

        1. Education Mike*

          For sure! No one would blink twice as someone who identifies as a non-religious person saying they absolutely cannot work Christmas. holidays are so much about cultural tradition and family time.

          1. Jane*

            Yeah, but only the Christian ones. This country builds its vacations, “cultural traditions and family time,” civic celebrations, and pretty much everything else around Christian holidays. My family isn’t that excited about family time and “cultural tradition” time happening around Christmas – we’d rather gather for Passover – but that’s not the way it works, and when I’ve said I absolutely cannot work on the day of the Seder, it has not been well received.

            2. JM60*

              I’d rather people such as yourself to have the option to celebrate family time and “cultural tradition” on your preferred days instead of days associated with Christianity, but I wanted to address the “only” part of “only the Christian ones”…

              My employer observes 12 holidays, and only 2 of those (Christmas Eve and Christmas), relates to Christianity. The other 10 (83%) are entirely secular holidays. That’s far from “only” Christian holidays.

                1. JM60*

                  None. I get that the 2 holidays related to Christianity are 2 more than 0 related with other religions, but my point is that saying “only the Christian [holidays]” are “about cultural tradition and family time” is a great exaggeration.

                  —————————————————

                  As a side note, I carefully chose my words “related to Christianity” because some non-Christians, such as myself, celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday. To me, this is a bit like many people celebrate Halloween as a secular holiday even though it’s also celebrated as a Christian holiday (All Hallows Eve), and also use to (still is?) celebrated as a religious holiday by some Pagan religions. Though it’s fine if others don’t view Christmas the same way I do.

        2. Curmudgeon in California*

          This. It doesn’t matter if I take Halloween (Samhain) off because I’m pagan or because I’m really into decorating, costuming and handing out candy to kids, or need to help kids with their school events and trick-or-treating.

      4. Momma Bear*

        Floating holidays would be nice – maybe they use it for vacation or a mental health day instead of a religious day, but that would be secular yet inclusive. Some Christians take off Good Friday, for example, and some don’t. Let them choose.

        I’d also expand parental leave to be genderless and be the same regardless of how the kid got there. Think also about foster parents who may need time for court or just getting necessities for a new placement.

        1. Combinatorialist*

          I don’t think it’s wise to ignore that physically giving birth is a medical event. I think my company does sick leave if you gave birth + parental leave that is genderless and regardless of how the kid got there. So you get “more” if you give birth, but also you do need to do more (since you need to recover physically and bond with the baby)

          1. CG*

            However the kid gets here, though, it is almost always an event that needs PTO – whether that is a foster or adoptive parent needing time off for court, a person who birthed a child needing time off for the medical event of birthing, a person who is undergoing fertility treatments needing time off for related medical appointments, a kinship caregiver needing time for their child’s potential therapies… kids take time! I agree that caregiver leave should be genderless and inclusive of all kinds of families, not just families where one parent has physically given birth. Its not correct to say that birthing parents “do more” than other caregivers – every family is different.

            1. My Two Cents (Five with Inflation)*

              This only works if caregiver leave is separate from the medical leave granted to a “birthing person”. Even if caregiving is equally spread out with other people, recovering from the toll on the body that pregnancy and birth has can take quite some time. And that is without considering postpartum depression and such.

    3. Elle*

      Agreed! At least one floating holiday. Also make sure there’s enough PTO to cover holidays, vacations, caregiver crisis, etc.

    4. Ruby*

      Thank you!! The High Holy Days should be company holidays in my opinion. And I don’t even celebrate them (anymore).

      1. Hello Dahlia*

        My Fortune 500 company calls these Diversity Days. We can take them for whatever moves us (non-Christian holidays, Pride events, etc.). We also have unlimited PTO for work-life balance, but your manager can and will decline them if your job isn’t getting done. We generally don’t have an issue with it, as it’s reserved for salaried workers only – they tend to be more professional.

        1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

          I think the idea of “Diversity Day” is heading in the right direction in both intent and language, but I don’t fully love it because of the implied othering. Go forth! Be diverse! But oh yeah if you’re Christian you get your holidays off anyway because they’re part of the establishment.

          1. Sylvan*

            Kinda sounds like there’s “normal” holidays and “diverse” holidays, which is a little silly.

          4. Dark Macadamia*

            Yep. An individual can’t be “diverse.” It isn’t “diverse” to observe your own religion/culture!

          5. LlamaDuck*

            Maybe the key is, don’t actually make/let everyone take Christian holidays off? People who don’t celebrate Christmas or Easter can work those days, then take other days off instead.

            This is how it works in certain workplaces I’ve been in that have to be open year-round (hospital, etc). Kind of a relief when team members aren’t put out about covering Christmas, because they got Diwali off the month prior.

        2. Slovenly Braid Cultist*

          *it’s reserved for salaried workers only – they tend to be more professional.*

          Wow. Companies not wanting to pay their workers enough to meet the exemption threshold in no way makes those employees unprofessional.

          Also, in my experience the least-paid folks are usually the ones with the busiest jobs- if their job is not getting done it often means they’ve got way too much for a human being to deal with on their plate- but sure, let’s blame those entry-level people who keep the world moving for being insufficiently “professional.”

          2. amethyst*

            I was assuming the commenter meant their job roles were more professional roles, not that the employees’ behavior was more professional.

            1. Hello Dahlia*

              yes … sorry! The roles are more like analysts, people managers and project managers – workers who normally don’t have someone else who can do the job, unlike production or admin workers.

            2. Slovenly Braid Cultist*

              Genuinely, that doesn’t make it better in my opinion? It still implies that hourly workers are not deserving of these perks by virtue of… not making more money. Those admins, those production people, are the people doing the actual work for probably too-little compensation and aren’t eligible for these equitable policies, and yeah, I still think that’s messed up.

              And it’s a lot easier to be up-to-date on your responsibilities if your responsibilities are telling the admins to do a thing, than if you’re an admin trying to juggle three peoples’ orders.

              I don’t see any way to spin this comment as anything other than looking down on the hourly workers, whether or not it’s a personal attack on their behavior.

        3. Anne of Green Gables*

          My institution just added two Days of Personal Significance, which I like better than “diversity day” for reasons that other commenters have already covered. It was added I think largely because we do not get Juneteenth off. They are use-it-or-lose-it in the fiscal year, do not get paid out when you leave, and must be taken 8-hours at a time, not in fractions of a day, all of which is different from our vacation and sick time.

          The wording when they introduced the policy made it clear they could be used for religious or cultural celebrations but that you also are not limited to those. I took one on the first day of school for my elementary-school aged child and will take the other on election day so I can volunteer at the polls. (I do not have to say why I am taking it when I request off.)

          1. Michelle*

            Floating holiday works for me, but I love the “Personal Significance” label! This company is the first I’ve worked for that has floating holidays, which I appreciate. I don’t have to use my PTO (one big bucket) for religious purposes. There are some rules around it, which aren’t perfect, but it’s a huge step.

            You mentioned using one of your days for volunteering. I worked for a company that had not only volunteer time off (which is great) but also time off for voting. I don’t remember the specifics, but I think there was a difference for volunteering to work the polls and time off for actual voting.

            1. Anne of Green Gables*

              Personally I think election day should be a federal holiday, but it’s great to know that some employers will give you time off to vote!

              1. Kristen Saunders*

                I disagree that election day should be a federal holiday. The vast majority of people who have challenges finding time to vote already work in a sector that would not give them off for a federal holiday. Election day as a federal holiday would just give government workers and finance people another day off. Not the rest of the real world. (And most states require an employer to allow you off to vote.)

                1. Rebelx*

                  Or… it should be a federal holiday, with additional limitations on which types of businesses and services are allowed to operate. Only very limited exceptions for essential services (who still would have to ensure their workers are given time to go vote if they wish).

                  Even if most states (but not all, notably) require employers to let people vote, that kind of protection depends on voters being aware that they have the right in the first place, on ensuring employees feel they can exercise that right without negative repercussions, and on employers actually complying (which some may not, assuming most people won’t expend the effort/resources/etc. to sue or whatever).

          2. Higher Ed Cube Farmer*

            I’m here to upvote a few Days of Personal Significance or Floating Holidays for all employees.

            Also LW, please keep advocating for educational cost and student loan support. Federal forgiveness measures aren’t going to reach everyone who needs them, and they’re little use to any employees whose educational expenses aren’t covered by a student loan.

            1. The Real Fran Fine*

              This. People with private loans aren’t getting any relief here, so it would be nice for an employer to help out with those specifically up to a certain amount.

          3. Anne of Green Gables*

            I forgot to mention that our Part-Time staff also get two personal days, and the number of hours are pro-rated based on their standard schedule. These are the only paid days off our part time staff get.

          4. Curmudgeon in California*

            The few times I worked as a poll worker I took PTO. I wish they would have given me volunteer time for it. (The poll worker’s day, at least in my county, was over 12 hours long. You got there at least an hour before the polls opened, and stayed over an hour after the polls closed.)

          5. Firefighter (Metaphorical)*

            I like Days of Personal Significance. I would also suggest something like Community Obligations which could be a religious community or Pride or cultural business for Aboriginal employees (I assume Indigenous people in the US would have similar obligations that don’t line up with the dominant/ Christian culture but I don’t know the context there).

        5. Librarian of SHIELD*

          I have a real problem with companies that have different leave policies for exempt workers than for non-exempt.

          Where I currently work, exempt staff only use PTO in full day increments. The idea is that since sometimes exempt staff will need to come in early, stay late, and work more than 40 hours in a week, it’s okay if sometimes they work less than those 40 hours to compensate. But we also have a policy that only allows staff to have 6 unscheduled absences a year, and since exempt staff can come in late or leave early without tracking it in the payroll system, it’s a lot easier to get away with having a lot of unscheduled absences. In my branch, I’ve seen an hourly worker get reprimanded for having too many absences while an exempt worker in the same building was absent far more often with no consequences.

          If OP’s goal is to have a more inclusive benefits program, I think it’s worth looking into whether or not there’s any difference in the leave options open to people based on whether they’re exempt or non-exempt.

      2. I should really pick a name*

        I would think the goal would be to stop tying company holidays to religious holidays and instead, give employees more vacation days to use as they see fit.

        1. Mm*

          I think the issue, though, is that from a capacity planning standpoint it is easier for many offices to be fully closed on major christian holidays. Giving those as holidays and other days as PTO makes it feel like non-christians have to use vacation time for important holidays. I prefer float holidays that can be used on lots of non-traditional holidays.

          1. Wintermute*

            not to mention that for many companies it would be pointless to have everyone come in on a day that your corporate partners are closed (vendors, suppliers, etc), banks are closed (no payment processing stuff to deal with), and foot traffic is way, way down. Federal holidays are kind of “default” and yes, some of them are tied to religious observances, but that doesn’t change the fact that no one’s going to get anything done if there’s no work to be done and no customers coming.

            1. stater*

              Reading with interest and for good ideas. I’m a government employee who gets most of the state and federal holidays off work, including Juneteenth, Indigenous People’s Day, etc, although realistically due to the nature of our office’s work, we do end up working on some of these recognized holidays and claim comp time. We have a diverse office and I’ve been trying to strike a balance for folks that allows us to be open and available to the public and allows people to celebrate days of significance. A member of the public asked why we were not closed for the Jewish High Holidays and the honest answer was because we currently do not have a Jewish member on our team so we were still open and available to anyone who needs to call/use our services.

              The best suggestion I could give to our current office is that we follow the state holidays, which includes being closed on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, and then being dynamic towards the needs of our team. We don’t close for Eid, but some coworkers will take a few days off and the rest of us work, and sometimes it just works out if some folks had comp time from working on a state holiday for example.

              Some local schools now close to observe holidays that reflect the whole community, which might mean our office is more likely to close for childcare, even if our coworkers do not personally observe those holidays.

      1. Another Admin*

        My company just did this last year. Removed Good Friday, added 1 more floating, and now gives us all 3 floating holidays on Jan 1 instead of one on Jan 1 and one on July 1. It’s a lot more flexible now!

      2. HedgehogOBrien*

        My org did that a couple of years ago – swapped Good Friday for Presidents Day, and then last year we added Juneteenth as an additional holiday.

    7. Venus*

      In my ideal world I would be able to work 25 December and take that day somewhere else. Being forced to take time off for easter and other religious holidays irritates me, although I know that this is almost impossible to change culturally. I think I have 4 days of holiday leave that are based on religion, and it would be such an advantage if those could be used anytime in the year.

      1. Person from the Resume*

        I’m a US federal employee. We don’t get off for Good Friday or Easter (which is always a Sunday so for most people who work Monday to Friday, Monday off isn’t even accommodating religious observance).

        I live in a very Catholic area and between the religion and culture influenced by Catholicism I take Good Friday off usually because many other people in my area do. If you’re not having a crawfish boil on Good Friday (which is in direct opposition to Catholic instruction to fast on Good Friday so not Catholic) or walking/riding to a bunch of churches (which can be religious but also can be just tourist looking at old churches) why do you need Good Friday off?

        1. Expat*

          The current Catholic definition of fasting on Good Friday is one “full” sized meal and two smaller meals that do not add up to a full meal. Beverages are not restricted during a fast. And of course, Catholics don’t eat meat on Good Friday, but seafood is allowed. So a crab boil is within regulation. We always had shrimp on Good Friday.

        2. Irish Teacher*

          Just an aside and maybe you know this, but fish on Good Friday is fairly standard for Catholics, at least in Ireland, because the rule about fasting is often interpretated as “no meat.” I always find it a bit amusing that the typical fast day meal in Ireland is fish and chips as that is more generally seen as a treat than a penance, but…that’s the tradition. I’m guessing in your area crawfish boil is the tradition?

          I don’t think many people here actually fast. The norm is just to have fish and chips as the main meal. MAYBE people might avoid things like sweets and chocolate for the day. Yup, the rule is officially also only one main meal and two snacks, but…that is a lot less generally observed.

        3. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

          Just so you know….

          Here in the United States, if you work in the financial world (brokerages, etc.) Good Friday is a holiday. Not because of any religious observances, but because the New York Stock Exchange always closes on Good Friday.

          Not to honor any religion — it’s the day the NYSE holds its annual business meeting.

          Now you know.

      2. Temperance*

        The argument for closing on major holidays (religious and not) is that many folks are going to be requesting off anyway and there isn’t as much work that needs to be done.

      3. Crazy Plant Lady*

        Me too! I would love to be able to work Dec 25th and have another day off for an actual holiday for me. I do have a job where I could work a day without anyone else working and be productive. I know that’s not true for all jobs though. But when it is, this would be a great flexibility.

        1. Curmudgeon in California*

          Ironically enough, I tend to take on-call over Christmas so that the Christians can do family time. I often get to swap for other holidays (like Yule) or get an added PTO day during the winter shutdown.

    8. Rain's Small Hands*

      Add in NOT having mandatory leave over certain holidays – I worked for a company that put the company on furlough over Christmas since “you’ll all be with your families anyway.” And if you need to furlough a plant for maintenance (which was part of it), its a good time to do it. But not everyone spends “Christmas” with “their families”

      I celebrate Christmas, but my husband had an operational role for a big ecommerce company at the time – so he got Christmas Eve and Christmas Day only “on call” and would drag his laptop to my parents. He certainly didn’t get the two weeks we’d furlough the plant for. And my kids would get just the week between Christmas and New Years.

      1. Old Cynic*

        Before we shuttered our business, we closed for the full 2 weeks over Christmas/New Years because, quite frankly, very little work got done then anyway. It was fully paid time off in addition to PTO.

        1. londonedit*

          This is how it’s always been in my experience of book publishing in the UK – historically the printers would all shut down over Christmas, so it became tradition for publishing houses to do the same. Where I work now it’s in addition to our standard holiday allowance of 25 days (plus 8 bank holidays) which was a change the company I worked for made a few years ago – in other jobs I have had to save 3 days to cover the time, but usually only if I’ve had a more generous holiday allowance (if a company only gave the minimum 20 days plus bank holidays, in my experience they wouldn’t ask people to take the time). We also get two additional days a year to do whatever we want with, over and above our holiday entitlement – the idea of those is that you might use them as mental health days, but in practice they’re just two extra floating holiday days.

        2. KRM*

          Yes, we get a so-called “Christmas shutdown” but it’s the week between Xmas and New Years, and it’s in large part because so many people are off anyway, because kids are out of school, it just makes sense for us to have a shutdown. It’s in addition to our vacation, etc.

        3. Curmudgeon in California*

          Some places that did the two week shutdown would make you use PTO for part of it, which meant that your PTO at that time was mandated. Ticked. Me. Off! I usually arrange to take on-call so that other people can do family stuff. Then I get my full PTO and a relatively quiet week.

      2. darlingpants*

        I work in an industry and location where “end of year shutdown” from Christmas Eve through New Years Day is very common, and includes a lot of plant maintenance. I understand that we’re off for a Christian holiday, and that’s not equitable, but personally I’d be pretty peeved if we switched it to a random other week that wasn’t aligned with school schedules.

        1. Wintermute*

          that is the real issue– right now it’s more or less culturally aligned, things like that only work if everyone is on the same page, if schools are open but businesses closed, or worse vice versa, then you run into child care issues and not really being able to use the time much.

      3. talos*

        My old (worldwide, non-manufacturing) company did this to all employees. Pissed me off. I’m fine having Christmas itself off (I don’t observe, but my family and some friends do, so the one day is fine), but I do not want to spend PTO for the other 4 days of that week.

    9. Sarah*

      I really like how my company does it. We get 6 “set” holidays a year (New Years day, Memorial Day, July 4, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day), plus 3-4 floating holidays per year, to use however we like. The floating holidays were originally Christian religious holidays we got off, but we’re switched several years ago as our workforce became much more diverse. It really works better for everyone!

      1. Lizzie*

        My company does that as well. We got most major holidays, plus 3 floating holidays and 4 personal days, on top of the very generous PTO we get. I’ve been here since the dark ages, so I get 5 weeks, plus those 7 days, so 8+ weeks of PTO. Sick time is separate, but also very generous.

      2. louvella*

        We get 11 set holidays and then a “personal holiday” for the first six months of the year and for the second six months of the year–but that is clearly not enough if you want to say, take off major Jewish holidays without dipping into your PTO. I would be happy with fewer set holidays and more floating ones, but I can see that being more challenging for my organization since we have many departments that require coverage (we operate health care clinics and various social services) and it’s easier to close for a day and have everyone be off than it is to manage with people taking off whenever.

    10. Yes And*

      My former company closed down on one representative holiday from every faith/identity represented on the staff – Yom Kippur, Eid, Lunar New Year, etc. It was a really lovely way to make sure that people who observed wouldn’t be punished for it by accumulating workload.

    11. Jessica*

      Public university here. We just got a new thing this year: you get one day of Personal Observance leave per year that you can use for observance of a religious or cultural date or anything significant to you. The policy was clearly prompted by Juneteenth, and is clearly also meant to help out people with non-Christian religious holidays, but it’s also very emphatically clear that you can use it for whatever you choose and nobody gets to inquire or judge. (I just took mine for my mom’s birthday.) It’s only one day, which won’t get anybody through their religious holidays, but I think the way it was implemented is good.

    12. DANGER: Gumption Ahead*

      I’d also add in allowing WFH and flex time for anyone who is fasting for religious purposes. I’d also explicitly make it company policy not to schedule events on major religious events and allow employees to add events to the list. At my work we have event scheduling restrictions around:

      Ramadan
      Nowruz
      Ashura
      Hopi Kelmuya and Kyaamua (Nov/Dec) and Talangva (July)
      Pascua Yaqui pilgrimage season (around Easter)
      Lunar New Year
      Diwali
      Holi
      Ram Navami
      Yom Kippur
      Rosh Hoshana
      Passover
      Catholic/Protestant Christmas (12/25) and NY (1/1)
      Orthodox Christmas (1/7) and NY (1/14)
      Catholic/Protestant and Easter
      Orthodox Easter

      It may look like a lot, but the holidays cluster most years to varying degrees, so it isn’t half as big an issue as you’d think

      2. MigraineMonth*

        My org sends out a notification of dates to avoid scheduling meetings. This is apparently put together in consultation with local religious organizations.

      3. Middle Name Danger*

        Flexibility for people fasting is a great thing to mention – a very observant Jewish friend of mine recently mentioned that fasting goes more smoothly now that she doesn’t need to waste energy on a commute just to sit in an office where other people are eating or discussing food.

    13. CJ*

      Someone below mentioned the issue for atheists and agnostics. The other concern I’d have is people who, for whatever reason, don’t want to be wildly open with their religion and might not kick over the “I won’t be in tomorrow, as it’s Samhain” ant nest. (Especially in that case, since people can, will, and do confuse it with All Hallows.) I know from OP’s description that the company would support a pagan employee, but offices still do gossip – especially if the employee then switches jobs to a less open workplace.

      1. Curmudgeon in California*

        Actually, I wonder if atheists and agnostics could adopt the solar holidays – spring equinox, summer solstice, fall equinox and winter solstice – as “holidays” to celebrate the orbit of the earth around the sun, just so they have “religious” holidays. They are physical, objectively observable, and require no deities to make them happen.

        1. Calliope*

          Lots of people do celebrate those and they are also important to specific religious traditions but you can’t just be like “you need to have a holiday for PTO reasons so take this one.”

        2. TechWorker*

          I would muuuuch rather just have enough PTO that people can take the holidays they need. A company that decides I can have a day off but only if I’m using it to do something religious or ‘an event’ is interfering way too much in what I do in my time off.

          1. JM60*

            It would not just be interfering; it would also be a form of discrimination. If Jewish coworkers get a paid holiday on Yom Kippur, plus all other company holidays, but I (an atheist) only get those other holidays off, that’s discrimination on the basis of me not being Jewish.

            I get why people would dislike having a religious holy day another religion as a company holiday, while not having any holy days for their religion be a company holiday. But I think the answer is to give people more flexibility in which days they get off (e.g., allow people to take Yom Kippur off instead of another company holiday). In a way, you can view PTO as a bunch of holidays, except you can choose which days they’re on.

        3. Some Bunny Once Told Me*

          As an Atheist, no, thank you, I would not feel comfortable lying about having “religious” holidays, especially not ones that actually *are* religious holidays.

    14. LHOI*

      A friend of mine used to work for a nonprofit that never closed their office for any holidays, they just gave everyone the same number of personal holidays to use as they wanted through the year. I think it’s a great idea both for diversity/observance but also just practically–wouldn’t it be great if your school district’s in-service day could be a holiday!?

      1. Wintermute*

        I think that’s ideal if there’s work to be done, but for many businesses it wouldn’t make much sense. I worked for a bank, every other bank was closed, the fed wasn’t sending their files, ACH processing wasn’t going to be sent. It would be pointless to have more than a minimal “keep the lights on and handle disasters” crew there just for the sake of not giving people the time off because it’s a religious holiday.

      2. turquoisecow*

        This seems the most equitable way to go about it and also doesn’t require employees to disclose their religious affiliation, which many of the other suggestions do.

        I also agree, however, that if all the vendor and business partners, banks, customers, etc are going to be closed and there isn’t much work to do (like Christmas Day for example) then it’s kind of silly to be open, unless the business is such that there’s always some work to be done. I once worked retail with a woman who didn’t celebrate Christmas and she argued she should be allowed to work that day, especially as it fell on a day she usually worked. However, even if there were enough people willing to work with her (she was a cashier and obviously couldn’t run the store by herself, at least a few other employees would have to be there including a front end manager or bookkeeper to open the safe and give her a toll), the number of customers would be so small that they might lose money being open once salaries and etc were factored in. That’s just the dominant culture we were(/are) in.

        I think a business in the US could close for Christmas Day based on that requirement but no other holidays of significance. If there’s a way that someone could work on reports or do other things on that day without needing the support of others in and out of the company who didn’t work that day, then let them. But in many industries it just wouldn’t be practical right now.

    15. Drago Cucina*

      I agree. I’m a Catholic in a state where we make up (maybe) 3% of the population. I have holy days of obligation that get a side eye that used to get a side eye when I asked for anytime off. Yes, I have to drive to neighboring county to go to church and would like to get there on time.

    17. SpaceySteph*

      I would rather see at least some of these holidays become company holidays not just optional holidays. I am almost never short on PTO but it is hard to take a bunch of days off for the Jewish holidays while work goes on without me and I have to find coverage for meetings, and come back to a mountain of email. It is extremely stressful.

      Obviously I don’t think its reasonable to turn every religion’s every holiday into a day off, but if you’re giving a week for Christmas, can you at least pick a couple days from each major religion and turn it into a day off for everyone? Maybe some less important federal holidays (f*ck Christopher Columbus, to start) could turn into a work-day instead if needed to manage overall holiday time.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          There’s been an effort to replace it with Indigenous Peoples Day, but I’m not sure how successful that’s been. To be honest, I kind of side-eye it for lumping all indigenous people into a single group to be celebrated for a single day.

          1. SpaceySteph*

            I’ll caveat that I’m not indigenous, but I also side-eye Indigenous Peoples Day. The date marks his arrival in the Americas, which is basically the start of his campaign of numerous crimes up to and including genocide against the indigenous population. In my opinion, renaming it does very little to acknowledge that (plus allows many people to keep calling it Columbus Day).

            I think Columbus day should be purged entirely, and an Indigenous Peoples’ day be established some other date that doesn’t coincide with anything Columbus did. I’d like to see some indigenous people involved in the selection of that date, too.

            1. Ness*

              Plus, Columbus day was originally created in response to violence against Italian immigrants. If you’re going to replace Columbus day with something, it might make more sense to honor another Italian American (from some very brief research, Mother Cabrini seems like a good choice), and add Indigenous Peoples’ day on a different day.

              1. LittleDoctor*

                Why should Italian settlers’ role in the colonization of America, and their illegal and unjust presence in North America, be celebrated at all?

          2. 1LFTW*

            I suspect it varies by location. In my very blue area, many of the local cities have more or less officially renamed it as Indigenous People’s Day, and it appears as such on all city calendars and official communications.

        2. Wintermute*

          That’s kind of complicated, a lot of Italian-Americans are very adamant about it, and see it as a day of recognition of Italian-American roots and their role in the founding of America, which isn’t exactly wrong either. You’ll find ardent defenders and critics on both sides unfortunately so someone is going to be offended no matter what you do.

          1. LittleDoctor*

            Mm, as an indigenous person, Italian settlers’ role in the colonization of America is nothing to celebrate. It’s a disgusting event that should be a source of shame. People of Italian descent (and other Europeans, obviously) have no right to North America—indigenous people do.

            1. StephChi*

              As an Italian-American, I agree with you. Columbus Day needs to go, and Indigenous Peoples’ Day should be a different day entirely, that’s not associated with Columbus. I’m a teacher, so we actually get Indigenous Peoples’ Day off, but the district could probably find another one to replace it with, I’m sure!

            2. Wintermute*

              I see where you’re coming from, but Italians were an oppressed minority for a lot of American history. Obviously not to the same extent, but the origin of Columbus day starts with a movement to try to say “we’re legitimate Americans too!” at a time there was anti-Italian violence going on.

              That’s why a lot of Italian-Americans have such a strong reaction to suggestions to remove Columbus day, because it’s rooted in their own struggles with racism.

              That’s why I said that it’s kind of a no-win issue, because people are going to take strong exception no matter what you decide.

              1. LittleDoctor*

                Yeah, but they aren’t legitimate Americans, and they, like all Europeans, should leave or be forcibly deported. They shouldn’t be allowed to vote, to hold citizenship, to own land, to participate in governance, etc.

                1. Wintermute*

                  I think that ship sailed a VERY long time ago. the idea of deporting or disenfranchising 300 million people is silly, even if it were ethical or moral it’s not practical.

                2. Chirpy*

                  I do understand how European colonization destroyed Native cultures, and it’s truly terrible, but consider that deporting people to countries they have only a genetic connection to is never a good idea. And historically, sending enough people means displacing the native people of another place to create a new country all over again.

    19. Picard*

      What one company I worked for did is they had a set number of floating holidays separate from PTO. As a professional company, we didnt have to worry about staffing per se on any particular day so this worked out well. You could work Xmas if you wanted or not. I think we got 10? So basically at the beginning of the year, you did have to set out which “holidays” you would be taking off. And they were otherwise not paid. So if you wanted Presidents Day but didnt care about the 4th of July, then you could take presidents day paid and work the 4th. This obviously worked for religious holidays as well.

    21. Fluffy Fish*

      Yes! We have 2 floating holidays a year. They can be used for religious holidays or really anything at all.

      This is seperate from our vacation leave and sick leave pools.

    22. Anne Wentworth*

      +1
      So much this.

      Also, let people work on Thanksgiving and Christmas if they want. It can be galling to be forced to observe a holiday you don’t celebrate (and Thanksgiving isn’t without issues), and have to use personal vacation for your own holidays.

    23. Jen Gregory*

      Yup, that was my first thought too. My company gives a set number of days for unspecified religious or cultural observations that aren’t included on the standard list of federal holidays.

    24. Janeric*

      At a minimum these dates should be in your official calendar of Christian holidays are on that calendar.

    25. Biology Dropout*

      I love this idea. SO much. One thing I wish people would realize about my holidays is that they’re not just fun days to spend in quiet contemplation or recharge or do whatever I want – the last one was a marathon of 7 hours of religious services and a family dinner. Taking very limited PTO or personal days for multiple holidays like this can be hard; and also draining because it means less vacation/time with out of town family/etc.

      1. TechWorker*

        There are plenty of things that people (non religious and religious) do with their time off that aren’t ‘fun’ or doing ‘whatever they want’. I think religion is more intertwined with .. everything .. in the US than where I live, but the idea of getting extra time off for religious reasons is totally alien to me.

        (I do agree it’s unreasonable if you get so little PTO you have to use it all for religious events, but the solution to that is better PTO for everyone, not treating people differently based on religion).

        1. Biology Dropout*

          I do agree with the PTO issue, wholeheartedly. But I will say, living in the US, it’s not uncommon at all to have very limited PTO and to have to use at least some of it around Christian holidays. My former employer closed around Christmas and made us use PTO, and since we had so little that was like 1/3-1/4 (depending on years of service) of our PTO for the year that I had to use on a holiday that I didn’t even celebrate. Leaving me with very little for the holidays I actually did celebrate. My mom went for most of her working life with 2-3 vacation days a year, which she had to decide to use on either the Jewish holidays or a vacation. Know what’s a shitty decision? Having to decide if you’ll see your elderly, sick dad or celebrate the High Holy Days, knowing you can’t do both. It’s a crappy situation in this country.

    26. HowMuchIsTooMuch*

      Are you looking for sonething beyond personal days (the default for religious holidays for most people because it doesn’t require manager approval to use)? Or are you suggesting an increase in days so it covers more holidays? The number of days required to cover all of the necessary holidays for an observant Jew is pretty high – should they all be bonus days? That’s a lot of extra time.

        1. TechWorker*

          ??? I just really don’t get this.
          I understand that people with caregiving responsibilities should and do get extra time, but why should you be paid more for the work you do (which is… exactly what free extra time off is) because you are religious? How can an employer possibly fairly judge what a reasonable amount of time off to observe a religion is? Give everyone enough PTO to use as they see fit and keep religion out of it.

          1. LittleDoctor*

            It is caregiving time for them, though – they have a responsibility to care for their deity. I don’t personally follow a religion that requires not working on any specific date, but people who do experience that as just as much a necessary thing as I experience caring for my children. Why should my choice to raise children be rewarded while someone else’s choice to care for their deity isn’t? It’s not extra time off for having fun, for the most part; people who are devoutly religious are generally doing a kind of work on the days they’re off.

            I think employers should take employees at their word. Also, for many religions (like Judaism, for example) there are easily accessible, publicly available lists of holidays that require not working.

    27. FormerEverything*

      My husband’s work calls them “floating holidays.” I think it’s a good term, because can apply to anything you personally might call a ‘holiday.’

      I don’t understand why they don’t just add those 3 or 4 ‘floating holiday’ days to their general PTO, but whatever. It doesn’t require calling out religion explicitly, which makes it usable & useful for anyone.

    28. Future silver banker*

      Yes. We are forced to take time off over Christmas when it is bleak weather. All my family is abroad, all the locals are back to their hometowns with their families, so I am sat at home doing nothing and using up my holiday

  2. Hermione Danger*

    I can’t think of anything to add to this amazing list, but I would like to come work for you.

    5. Keeley Jones, The Independent Woman*

      It is a great list. The only thing I would add, that I haven’t seen mentioned, would be to have tiered insurance premiums vs a flat amount for everyone. Flat amounts put a higher burden on lower wage employees who end up paying a much higher percentage of their income for medical coverage vs upper management. I worked years ago that had this and it was something like: $75k paid $X amount, then $75-$150k paid a higher amount, and $150k+ paid the highest amount.

  3. mli25*

    Consider shutting down the office for a week during the year (Christmas to New Years, a week in the summer, whatever makes sense for your org) and it be part of the compensation (not require an PTO)

    1. many bells down*

      Both my spouse’s employer and mine do this, and we absolutely love the opportunity to spend a week together with no work obligations. We rarely are able to swing the same time off otherwise.

    3. Pool Lounger*

      My previous job did this and it was a huge benefit. Actually having time to travel to see people, without having to sacrifice vacation!

    4. Lynn*

      Really wish my company would do this! Those weeks often end up being such a waste anyway — the majority of my work is doing things with other people who are not there! (I do call them my “working holidays though” and often spend them deep cleaning my work area, clearing office clutter, and zero-inboxing)

    5. Prospect Gone Bad*

      IDK, my company has done this and now everyone has huge PTO banks unused. I feel like it’s better to just give people time off and the freedom to choose when to use it. Not to mention that most places can’t just shut down for days and days at a time.

      1. bamcheeks*

        That sounds more like a problem with not adjusting the amount of work that needs doing to the level of PTO they’re giving people?

        Most UK universities close 25th Dec – 1st Jan, and one massive benefit of it is that you don’t come back to tons of work to catch up on. And *incredibly* helpful when it coincides with school holidays.

        1. londonedit*

          Same in my industry. We close between Christmas and New Year and it’s great that everyone can come back to the office in January without a ton of stuff to catch up on. We also can’t take more than five days’ holiday over into the next year (and anything taken over has to be used by the end of March) so if you don’t take your holiday allowance then you lose it. In 2020 we ended up with people having loads of time still left to take in the last three months of the year (because we basically couldn’t go anywhere for weeks on end with the lockdowns and people were hopefully waiting until ‘things were normal again’ before they booked holiday, ha) so they extended it to carrying over up to 10 days that you could take at any point during 2021, but we’re back to normal now. We’re very much encouraged to take holidays – both because it’s a financial liability for the company but also from an employee wellbeing point of view.

        2. Lab Boss*

          Underrated stealth benefit to the company closing its doors for a synchronized week. I’m someone who will usually check my e-mail a few times during vacation, because I’m more relaxed making that tiny sacrifice and coming back to a manageable e-mail backlog than I would be disconnecting totally and having hundreds of messages and multiple emergencies waiting for me. Everyone’s gone? No piled up e-mails.

      2. Extroverted Bean Counter*

        The benefit of the entire company shutting down at the same time is that people (generally) can truly unplug and enjoy the time. Lots of places manage it – I work at the HQ of a manufacturer and we manage it! We office workers actually get the shutdown week because the labor unions negotiated it for the plant workers, and the company decided to extend that to all employees.

        You’d still be able to take whatever time off you wanted at other times, right? But during that shutdown time you can breathe easy knowing that no one is expecting reports from you, emails aren’t going unanswered, the work isn’t chugging along without you and you won’t have a huge pile waiting when you get back.

        It’s really nice for places that can manage it.

      3. Biology Dropout*

        On the flip side; my former workplace did a weeklong furlough around Christmas and made us use PTO. Which then meant I had even more limited time off for the holidays I actually celebrated. Don’t do this. It’s not good.

    6. CTT*

      I would caveat that this only works if no portion of your business truly does any work during that week. I’m a transactional attorney and that’s typically a busy week for us. Last year when New Year’s Day was on a Saturday, there was a mini uproar when our firm initially announced that we would observe the holiday on 12/31, which put all the transactional people in an awkward position of really needing staff help for our closings but also feeling like monsters for making them come in on what was supposed to be a holiday. So if you close that week, do the research to confirm that no one will have to come in and feel resentful about it.

      1. ferrina*

        We close that week for 90% of the company, but a few people typically still need to work due to the nature of their jobs. These folks get additional comp time that they can use at their discretion (and some of them work half days or minimal hours during this week). It works really well for us.

        1. Extroverted Bean Counter*

          Yep. I’m a corporate accountant and my group can never enjoy the Summer Shutdown (week of July 4th) because we have to close the books.

          But that just means that the accounting groups take their own “shutdown” a week later if we can/want to. It’s not quite the same as the relief of being able to fully unplug, but it’s close.

      2. Pisces*

        That reminds me of the time several attorneys at ThenEmployer wanted heavy admin overtime the Saturday of the office holiday party.

        In past years when Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve fell on Mondays, another PastEmployer wouldn’t give us the a four-day weekend because our finance department would still have had to work both days. Scrooge a.k.a. the firm’s chief administrative officer didn’t want to pay them holiday pay.

    7. C-Dub*

      A non-profit I briefly worked for in 2018 did just this. They shut down during the week of the Fourth of July and between Christmas and New Years every year. I started that job in late June, and due to the July shutdown I was able to fly back to see family. It was really nice.

    8. Language Lover*

      I agree. The reason I like this is because it’s nice to take time off knowing that I don’t have to find coverage or catch up when I get back or feel an internal pressure to pay attention to what’s happening at work even if it’s just passively so because everyone else is off.

    9. WantonSeedStitch*

      My workplace (a university) finally started doing this, which most of our peer organizations had already been doing, during the pandemic. I was delighted!

    10. Spicy Tuna*

      Dislike… people should be able to take off when they want to take off. When I was young and single, I really would have dreaded a week off between Christmas and New Year’s. I lived far from family and didn’t have the budget to travel. It was a really lonely time of year for me and work was a nice respite from the sadness.

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Also dislike. I worked at an org that did this but in my case it was annoying because I live near my family and don’t need to travel for the holidays, and the week was given in lieu of an extra week of PTO. I would have FAR preferred to get the week of PTO to use whenever I wanted to instead of sitting at home in the cold doing nothing. An extra week of summer vacation would have been way more useful enjoyable for me and honestly, being in the office that week when most people would have been away would have been nice, I like quiet offices.

        Is it unfair to those who do need to travel for the holidays to not close the office during that time? Sure, I guess. But the situation was unfair to me since I didn’t get to choose to take my vacation when I wanted to. And it was annoying in another respect, because not only did the org close that week, they also didn’t allow people to take any other time off in Dec. So say I wanted to do a nice warm vacation in Dec since I didn’t have to travel for the holidays, I’d have to do it in the last week in Dec when everything is a lot more expensive.

        I guess what we’re all saying is, closing the office between Christmas and New Year’s can be a nice perk, but maybe do it in addition to PTO instead of as a required week of PTO. Or have people opt out if they want and get the additional week of PTO to use any time they want.

        1. Extroverted Bean Counter*

          But the benefit that is suggested is that the shutdown time is in addition to your PTO/isn’t counted against PTO.

          So you still get your 10-15 days that you already have, but you also get that week off, fully paid.

          1. Spicy Tuna*

            I get what you are saying but I wouldn’t have cared that it was free time off… I still would have been horribly sad, lonely and bored.

            1. Some Bunny Once Told Me*

              I’m sorry, I truly am, but I feel like if you’re saying that you wouldn’t want literally everyone else to have an additional paid week off because it wouldn’t benefit *you* personally, that’s kind of messed up.

          2. Slow Gin Lizz*

            Full disclosure: I still did get 2-3 weeks PTO depending on how long I worked there, but my notion was that if the org could afford to give everyone another week off, it would have been nice to be able to choose when I took mine. Sure, it was lovely on Christmas eve every year when we all went home and knew we would get a week off from work, but I still would 100% have chosen to take PTO a different time if I could have.

            And now that I think about it, there were a couple of people who still worked a day or two that week because they were so overworked. So the office still wasn’t even really fully closed. I suppose those people might not have taken a different week of PTO if they could have, but since they were financial people they were obviously trying to get the year-end stuff done and it seemed a little unfair for them to have to come in (even by choice) when the office was technically closed.

      2. Mouse*

        Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame. My employer closes for the week between Christmas and New Year’s (you *have* to use your PTO to cover the bits of this that aren’t bank holidays), and I don’t celebrate Christmas, can’t afford to travel during that time, and all my friends are busy, so I just…sit home and play video games? Resenting the fact that had I been working somewhere else, I could have used this PTO to travel somewhere cool or visit folks at a not-Christmas time?

    11. anonymouse*

      A previous employer did this and I super miss it. I get that not all folks celebrate Christmas and I’m not at all religious. But having the company shut down for a week meant being able to fully sign off for a whole week and not come back to a barrage of emails to sort through (which sometimes makes me dread taking PTO). And because everyone was off there was no trying to arrange coverage or training people on tasks like when you take a longer vacation. It’s a huge benefit against preventing burnout. Frankly I wouldn’t care when a company scheduled this so if doing it during the summer is preferred as like a summer break that’d be great too.

    13. HedgehogOBrien*

      My employer does this and I LOVE it. It’s a huge, huge benefit especially since my husband is a teacher and my kids are in school, now our schedules all align. I do celebrate Christmas (although I don’t consider myself particularly religious) and it’s such a relief to be able to take time to be with my family, bake, watch movies, do all that fun stuff, and the entire office is shut down so I don’t feel the need to check in or follow up on anything. It’s a real break, which is so valuable.

      1. Covered in Bees*

        How nice for you. I’d love to have my office shut down for a week around Passover, so I could travel to be with my mother, cook with her for a week before the seder and learn her unique cooking magic that can’t be captured in written recipes.

        But hey, if I worked at your office, I’d get to sit around on my tuchus for a week in December, avoiding going to any stores because of the chaos, doing chores and waiting to be allowed to go back to work.

        1. Firefighter (Metaphorical)*

          This whole thread is making me very “yikes” about USian work culture, with so many people saying it’s impossible to take a week off to travel & see family when they want to (a week! Not a month! Not even a fortnight!) plus, Covered In Bees, I think you’re the second person I’ve seen saying that a week off work at a time when you don’t have religious/family obligations would be spent “waiting to get back to work”. This seems to be uncovering a deeper / different problem with work that better distribution of holiday days can’t fix (though that better distribution is a really important aim in itself!)

          1. Firefighter (Metaphorical)*

            On the other hand I’m an atheist, I don’t celebrate any religious holidays, I haven’t been in the same country as any of my family for 4 years and I would do pretty much anything to get out of spending a week with my mother, so there’s definitely something I don’t fully grok here. I have a partner I like hanging out with, a stack of books, a stash of yarn and a neglected garden, so a week when the uni’s closed is always a bonus. Especially when I also get the schadenfreude of knowing so many of my colleagues are doing the traditional Aussie Christmas (four days in a car with kids in stationary traffic in 40-degree heat traveling between the households of all four grandparents and their new spouses)

        2. Some Bunny Once Told Me*

          I don’t understand this. I’m an atheist who doesn’t celebrate Christmas – and in fact, I find its omnipresent jingle jangle to be truly obnoxious and oppressive – but I’d kill for a paid week off in December when I knew everyone else was off too so I wouldn’t have a crap ton of stuff to come back and catch up on.

          I also don’t understand why sitting around on my tuchus for a week would be a bad thing — there’s always books I want to read, movies I want to watch, crap I want to catch up on, and naps to take.

    14. OyHiOh*

      I’m torn on this one because from my point of view it assumes that everyone celebrates “the holidays” (Christmas/New Year), forgetting of course that lunar/solar holidays like Hanukah can be as early as late November and as late as the last week of December, and that others are tied to the solstice, which falls days before December 25, not to mention that the various Christian Orthodox churches use the Gregorian calendar and Dec 25 in the Gregorian does not align with Dec 25 in Julian . . . . and also, as a single parent, appreciating that this kind of strategy means I don’t have to find and pay for childcare for kids who are out of school that week.

    15. Covered in Bees*

      Organizational support for taking breaks from work is good, but don’t do it the week between Christmas and New Years. That’s just preferential treatment for your Christian employees… glaring, overt preferential treatment of Christians.

      1. Covered in Bees*

        And don’t come at me with that “holiday season” business. Stop trying to make Hanukkah into another Christmas, it’s a minor holiday.

        1. Biology Dropout*

          Right!? My former workplace made us take PTO for their “holiday week shutdown,” which left me very little left for the Jewish holidays I actually celebrate. I would have loved to have spent a week with my family for Passover… but no, I had hardly any PTO left for that.

      2. John*

        Alternatively, if you’re going to close the office down for a week, it makes sense to do it when 70%+ of your employees would be using PTO anyway.

        As long as it’s an additional benefit, and not coming out of your PTO bank, what’s the harm? You can always travel someplace warm during that week.

    16. DontCloseTheOffice*

      Ewww, I hate when companies do this. I don’t celebrate Christmas and this is often one of the most productive times of the year for me because it’s quiet. If you want to give me extra time off let me take it when I want to take it.

    17. The Real Fran Fine*

      I wish my company would do this at the end of December. No one is ever around anyway, so my team can’t really do any work, but I have to use my PTO for any days that aren’t Christmas Eve/Day and New Years Eve/Day. *sigh*

    18. Ginger Pet Lady*

      Honestly I have mixed feelings on this. Sure, it’s great for employees.
      When my kids were away at school and couldn’t use our insurance where they were, I always tried to schedule doctor and dentist appointments when they were home for the holidays. But they were all closed! This made simple medication refills and dental cleanings very expensive and difficult. Everything was out of network and/or out of pocket.
      I’ve also been unable to schedule a family photo while they were here.
      So it’s very frustrating as a customer.

  4. Neon*

    I suggest adding as much flexibility as possible to who employees can add to their medical plan.

    Not just expanding “married spouse” to include “non-married romantic partner” (although that’s a good start) but also allowing people to add other adult family members, multiple partners, children for whom they provide care but do not have custody, etc.

    There may be some hard limitations here imposed by the plan providers and/or the law, but I’d advocate to allow as many people as possible to be covered within those boundaries.

    1. Less Bread More Taxes*

      Absolutely agree. My partner and I both have decent insurance through our jobs, so I’d love to be able to add my mother onto mine, but that’s not an option.

    3. ThatGirl*

      Yeah unfortunately that may not be feasible with the US insurance market. The most inclusive plans I’ve seen only include domestic partners (e.g. not married but living together/in a long-term relationship) and children up to 26 because that’s the law now. It’s a nice thought, and the ACA does provide for some of those gaps.

      2. Robin*

        So that is interesting to me because I put my partner on my insurance (living together, unmarried) because my insurance covers a “domestic partner”. But none of the information I provided proved anything about our relationship. I could have put in a roommate if I wanted to. I am also not sure if there is even a mechanism to check that we have the same address or anything. If not, I could have put down a random friend or family member.

        I am limited to only one Domestic Partner, which is unfortunate. But I am curious what the actual enforceable limits on this designation are.

        1. Adequate Archaeologist*

          My husband and I didn’t have to prove our relationship on our first two insurance policies, even though we have different legal last names. They literally didn’t question it or ask for further details, just took our word for it. I could have easily put down my roommate! When my husbands company got bought out and put on the parent company’s insurance they required a copy of our marriage certificate (which was the first and only time we’ve ever had to prove we are married).

          1. MigraineMonth*

            When I started at BigCompany, they also added my spouse to my plan, no questions asked. It was somewhat awkward, since I did not actually have a spouse.

            1. LilPinkSock*

              Yikes, really? I’d be irritated for a lot of reasons–not least because monthly premiums beyond just the employee can cost a fortune!

          2. Antigone*

            I’m about to turn down an otherwise great job fit because they don’t have domestic partner health insurance. They DO cover per insurance. It leaves a very weird taste in my mouth about how this workplace approaches nontraditional family structure.

        3. Need More Sunshine*

          The onus is on the employer to gather evidence, usually an affidavit that you’re supposed to sign. But many employers will just take your word for it.

          1. Middle of HR*

            Just wanted to note as someone who admined health plans, it will be potentially disastrous if you get caught adding someone ineligible.
            The insurance company didn’t press charges on the folks who committed the fraud in our case, but it is legally fraud, and the response was to terminate insurance coverage retroactively.
            So they were faced with being to pay for any claims the ineligible person had out of pocket back at least a year.
            These things do get audited even if infrequently! Don’t be reckless!

    4. Viki*

      So that wouldn’t be something the company would be able to do, as they are contracting out a health insurance plan from an existing company that has strict relationship definitions/policies.

      The insurance industry would have to (should IMO) do a re-haul on defined relationships, but unless that actually happens by the industry no insurance company would be willing to underwrite that plan.

      1. Neon*

        Could LW’s company pay for separate health insurance for the other people in non-traditional family structures who would not be covered by the current inequitable health insurance setup?

        It seems impossible that there’s not *some* work-around that would result in an employee being able to extend health coverage to (for example) their parent or other romantic partners at negligible cost to that employee.

        1. Calliope*

          You could give them a stipend to buy health insurance on the market but it would be taxable as income. And then you would get into why everyone else shouldn’t have extra income for their various family commitments.

      2. Tacos McSalsa*

        Depends on whether the insurance company is the plan sponsor or plan administrator (sponsor = pays the claims from their own funds, administrator = adjudicates claims and pays from the employer’s funds). If the employer is the plan sponsor they have more freedom in who they allow to enroll in the plan. If one large employer in a competitive hiring environment started a push to cover say an entire poly household you’d start to see this happen.

          1. Imtheone*

            Isn’t it that health care law has requirements, but the health insurance or self-insured company can offer more benefits?

    5. Firm Believer*

      I don’t think I agree that it’s an employers responsibility to insure all of these people. Seems a bit overboard.

      1. KRM*

        That’s why it’s a benefit that you could opt into. It’s not required.
        It’s moot due to current laws around insurance, but if those were to change, it would be nice for someone to be able to choose a plan to cover their multi-generational household.

      2. Hen in a Windstorm*

        Nobody said it’s the “employer’s responsibility”, so you’re not disagreeing with anyone. Health insurance offered by employers literally started as a competitive benefit, which is why we have this horrible system now. Why can’t this just be another benefit?

      3. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

        Right now my married colleagues have the option to add another adult (spouse) to their insurance, but I, a single person, cannot extend that benefit to a sibling, niebling, or close friend (unless I marry her). I think a limit of one person in the “spouse” slot is pretty reasonable, but I’d like to have that option without changing my marital status.

        1. JustSomeone*

          As someone with two committed, long-term life partners, I disagree that there is anything inherently reasonable about limiting benefits to one “spouse” slot. Folks aren’t capped at coverage for just one child, and that doesn’t cause the system to fall apart. And yes, this is definitely a pet issue/sore spot for me; my legal spouse and I are on my insurance, while my other partner has to purchase through the exchanges because his tiny company doesn’t offer benefits at all. Not only is this financially crummy, it also means I have to do lots of extra work to make sure any medical providers take both kinds of insurance if I want our family to all be able to see the same doctors.

          2. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

            “my legal spouse and I are on my insurance, while my other partner….”

            The keyword is LEGAL. Bigamy is prohibited in the United States, and Canada.

            Your company likely sees no need to cover multiple life partners. One can easily see how that can also be abused.

            1. JustSomeone*

              “ Your company likely sees no need to cover multiple life partners.”

              Yes. I’m very aware of that. And part of equity and inclusion is the acknowledgment that not all families look alike or are structured the same. Maybe a family is one man, one woman, and 14 children. Another family is two women and one child. Another family is two men, one woman, and no children. Another family is one man and three children. An employer shouldn’t be in a position to validate or invalidate those chosen family structures. An employer would never be allowed to say “you already have a child, adding a second would be abusing your benefits.”

        2. AsPerElaine*

          I literally had to get married to get health insurance at a reasonable rate. I’ll admit that health insurance wasn’t the only factor there, but we 100% got married the week after I got laid off because it was a fraction of the cost of buying my own insurance.

      4. SIM Card Erased*

        These people want everyone covered but dont want to pay for it. Insurers start adding anyone and everyone on and premiums are going to be 10k a month.

        1. Neon*

          The idea is for *the employer* to pay for it, like they currently pay for other benefits.

          If the employee has to pay the whole cost it isn’t a benefit. It’s just somebody buying their own insurance.

          1. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

            Yes, but “the employer” has limits as well. The “employer” may be a publicly-held company, and it is not up to corporate America to re-define what a family is.

        2. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

          Exactly. Just before Obamacare kicked in, the company I worked for did a major audit of their health plan participant pool. They found a number of employees who had listed adult children as “students”, but could not produce a college registration. There were also people who had listed children on the plan – snuck on kids who weren’t theirs (I’m assuming they were children of other family members) or their own siblings.

          I believe that they allowed domestic partnerships – then again, that was extended as a courtesy insomuch as same-sex marriage was not legal across the country at the time. Of course, the partnership was restricted to one partner per employee — no “group marriages” or “multiple partners” or “sister wives”.

          And some companies halted domestic partnership coverage when same-sex marriages were permitted as a nation-wide right. The thinking was/is – if you have such a relationship, the company will support you if you formally wed.

    6. Divergent*

      This would be amazing. For various reasons relating to my neurotype and mental health I can’t live with a partner, and we both miss out on full health benefit coverage because of it.

      1. Temperance*

        Could you and your hypothetical partner live in the same apartment building, so you have the same address? Just pitching an idea.

        1. Divergent*

          While there are several ways we could commit insurance fraud, the consequences could be too great for us to consider it as a legitimate option.

          1. Firefighter (Metaphorical)*

            I am imagining Maggie Smith saying this delicious line. Sorry about your sucky insurance situation.

    8. Jack McCullough*

      At my employer we do allow some kind of coverage for unmarried partners, and I think this is a good idea.

      The complicating factor is that if the coverage is not for a legally recognized spouse it’s a taxable event, so that the payment for the unmarried partner is taxable income to the employee. Still probably a net benefit given the cost of medical insurance.

    9. Ben Marcus Consulting*

      While some health plans are more inclusive than others in this regard, the limit exists because of how the IRS codifies the use of pretax compensation for health insurance premiums.

      There’s also an incentive for employers to block the add of non-immediate family. They pay a portion of the premiums (usually fairly significant), and allowing an employee to add an expansive list of family would skyrocket benefits costs.

    10. Turtles All the Way Down*

      I think going back to just covering employee and dependent premiums in full would be fabulous.

    11. BerlieGirl*

      At the very least. include coverage for non-married partners. My partner and I have chosen not to get married. I am self-employed and getting good insurance is tough. Being able to be added to his job’s health insurance plan is huge for us.

  5. WellRed*

    My thought is you have a lot of family oriented benefits (which is great! Though 3 days bereavement leave us paltry if you lose a really close person like kid, parent or spouse). But “waiting” to see what the government does for student loans could take years. I’d love even a small bit of that kind of benefit.

    1. ThatGirl*

      Actually the loan forgiveness is set to take effect by the end of the year (the website will be ready this month). It may not be the best or the final word, but we know what they’re doing.

      1. Ellis*

        That only covers the first 10-20k of loans though and doesn’t cover people who consolidated their loans with private lenders when it looked like forgiveness was never going to be a thing

        1. ThatGirl*

          I did say it may not be the best. But the point remains that we’re not waiting years to see what the government is doing — it’s been done, at least for now.

      2. WellRed*

        Thanks for this. Still, I’m afraid there are companies that will wait until lawsuits etc, play out.

        1. ThatGirl*

          Probably. But we know the maximum of what the government will do, in any case, for the foreseeable future.

    2. Anonym*

      Yes, overall these are great, but I did note that 3 days bereavement for someone close to you seems low, especially if you’re having to deal with funeral/estate logistics. My company offers a week for immediate family, which I was grateful for when my parent passed away. (Overall their benefits are above average, but not as good – besides the bereavement – as what OP is proposing.)

      1. good_luck*

        I agree. My husband died and I had a 5 days. The company said I could take as much time as I needed but kept calling me. I could have used a couple weeks.

        2. Another widow*

          I also got 5 days when my husband died, but our bereavement leave is specific in that it starts on the day of death and counts as 7 calendar days. (You can use one day later if the funeral service is scheduled after the 7 calendar days.) There is a lot of unfair things about losing your husband in your 30s, but one of the really petty ones is that I worked a full day the date my husband died and it still got charged as the first day of my bereavement leave. All the people involved were caring and wonderful but the policy just seems so callous.

          1. Yolo1*

            Does the sick and care leave cover paid parental leave for the birth/adoption/ placement of a child? If not, I recommend a policy that offers a minimum of 12 paid weeks for parental leave.

        3. Flash Packet*

          When my brother took his own life, my managers said, “Take whatever time you need, tell us how we can divvy up your work load; we understand that you’ll be in a mental fog for quite awhile. We’re here for you.” And they took two really simple things off my plate.

          And then, a couple of weeks later, they were saying, “Hey, Flash, did you get that TPS report done? What’s the status on the XYZ project? The deadline is quickly approaching. Is the presentation for ABC done yet? What’s the status on this random piece of Huge Project? You should be on top of all those small details.”

          2. Firefighter (Metaphorical)*

            Oh, I am so sorry. I think this is such a common thing – people know the right thing to say but don’t know how to actually implement the stuff that’s needed.

            So sorry about your brother.

          3. WellRed*

            I’m sorry about your brother. My comments have been related to loss of dad but I lost my brothers few years later. We were Irish twins. It’s simply weird.

        4. WellRed*

          Holy fk! I’m so sorry this happened to you. I can’t imagine calling someone on bereavement leave at all let alone for a spouse. Bastards.

      2. SP*

        My company offers 3 days bereavement as standard, but you get 5 days if you have to travel over a certain distance to attend the memorial services.

        1. SimonTheGreyWarden*

          This was what my company at the time offered when my grandmother died, and that was in retail nearly 25 years ago.

      3. Jj*

        I also agree – I think a week is wise. I’d also make sure immediate family is a very flexible category. I have almost no blood family, but I have lived with my best friend for a decade. We are almost platonic spouses. Legally we are nothing, but if he passed it would be just like losing a spouse or a sibling.

      4. Flash Packet*

        I got 3 days bereavement when my brother took his own life. Our mother lives with me and I could have used at least a full week (5 days) just to keep her afloat, emotionally / mentally / physically.

        As it was, I took the 3 days and then got way behind in work trying to care for her, care for me, retrieve my brother’s belongings, close out his accounts, deal with the detectives, arrange for cremation, and retrieve his ashes.

      5. snoopythedog*

        Agreed. Three days is low.

        When my BIL suddenly died, it was complicated, as he died out of state and then other family members had complex health issues crop up. We (husband and I) were uprooted to another city for two weeks to deal with all of the related issues, including arranging the funeral, viewing, getting the body back in state, cremation, burial. Then the funeral date had to change twice because of logistics. Three days wouldn’t have covered anything. I was basically working and keeping my ILs and husband alive- ensuring people slept, saw sunlight, drank water, attempted to eat food for weeks. Luckily my employer and my husband’s gave us “unlimited” time off to deal with logistics. In reality, it was one week for me, plus the funeral day. It took my husband about 2-3 weeks to go back to work. Even then, we were both crappy employees as we stumbled around in a fog of grief (and our workplaces were ok with it).

        When my elderly grandma passed away when I was with my previous employer, I was given three days. It covered the two days I spent at home with puffy eyes from continuously crying and the single funeral day. Didn’t extend to the travel time for the funeral (relatively simple, but still a day on either end) and didn’t include the post-funeral ashes spreading which happened weeks later…again, a plane ride away. Once again, luckily to good management, I was given grace while grieving but at work. My husband ended up taking 5 days off just to support me- one day for the first day, then 4 for funeral + ash spreading days + travel.

        My work recently officially changed to “unlimited” bereavement in order to accommodate those who have complex or longer term bereavement requirements. For example, some Indigenous communities in our area have celebration and grief events for weeks following, which are important for the community to come together and grieve.

        All this to say, three days is paltry. Paltry. Whether it’s to get over the absolute shock and grief to be enough of a functional human being, to coordinate the details around death, or to coordinate logistics or support family members to be functional in their grief.

      6. Media Monkey*

        totally agree (and i’m in the UK so was given as much time as i needed) – my mum passed away fairly suddenly in late January. It seemed fairly certain to happen soon on the Monday am so i went straight to the hospital, my brother and family drove from 500 miles away on the Monday eve/ Tues am, my brother and i spent the afternoon with her and she passed away on the Tuesday evening. weds was spent consoling kids and family and calling a large number of people, Thursday we met with funeral directors. so that’s my 3 days (not even counting the Monday) and i didn’t even have a death certificate or a date for the funeral at that point.

    4. Ann Ominous*

      Maybe 3 days for any loss and x greater number of days if you are involved in coordinating the estate?

    5. lilsheba*

      I have to agree. If I lost my spouse, it would take way more than 3 days just to work through the grief so I could function again.

      1. KRM*

        Bereavement leave is not for a mourning period though. It’s for funeral attendance and some logistics. I agree it would be nice to have more time if you’re involved in the estate, but functionally the truth is that everything surrounding a death takes WAY more time than even a week to sort through. Maybe a small bucket of bereavement leave (2 weeks?) to be used in the following year, for funeral/logistics/if you need to meet with an estate lawyer/you need a day 3 months after in order to get paperwork notarized and together/what have you.

        1. shrinking violet*

          Many funerals are not even within three days. There is no way I could have gone in to work between my husband’s death and his funeral.

      2. GythaOgden*

        I lost my husband to cancer three years ago (he was 44, I was 39). My organisation gave me 5 official bereavement days and I took paid sick leave for two weeks (because as UK public sector we get quite generous conditions), but bereavement isn’t for grieving — it’s for immediate aftermath, paperwork, funeral etc. (It won’t cover working through probate, which takes a lot of time and you’re expected to do it on your own time, but it’s a chance to start things off by getting a death certificate etc.)

        Otherwise I wouldn’t have worked for over three years — I still dream about hubby, at 18 months my irrational brain still thought he’d left me and I kept begging him to come home, and even now I constantly tell myself I want to go home — that is, come home to him in the evening and be where I’ve been most happy.

        Realistically, no company can offer that amount of bereavement leave. Even sick pay at my organisation runs out after six months, and you’d definitely be discussing continued employment at that point in time. The pain is something that you have to process and deal with on your own time, and I applaud OP for trying, but 5 days is pretty standard for us in the UK.

      3. Person from the Resume*

        Bereavement leave is to attend the funeral not to get through the grief. There’s no timeline you can give for a person who lost a close family member to say they’ve grieved enough to be able to go back to work. It’s too variable. It’s not linear.

        You get 3 days as bereavement and then take what you need using PTO or sick leave (mental health) for the rest of your recovery.

        1. WellRed*

          But even just getting through the bare minimum of travel and arrangements can be longer than 3 days. I used up three days just waiting for my dad to die. I don’t expect it to cover the grief process but when you learn dad is in bad shape, you go. You don’t say, “ mom, call me” when it’s over. I did use PTO but I have generous PTO. Thank goodness!

    6. Finally happy at work!*

      I agree. 3 days bereavement is not enough for a parent/child/spouse/partner. My employers, at the time of my parents deaths (several years apart) gave me a week of paid bereavement. When we had to let our German shepherd cross the Rainbow Bridge due to cancer, my employer at the time gave me 3 paid bereavement days. I realize that would be an uncommon benefit but it meant so much to me.

      Otherwise, there are some great benefits listed!

      1. Mr. Shark*

        I agree that three days is not enough. Even if you are not traveling, you would have relatives coming in from all over the country, and you would need time to set up the funeral services and deal with the departed’s personal affects.

        My company just told me to take what time I needed and coordinate with my manager. I ended up taking about 7 days off, the first week was the day my father passed, and then that week was spent dealing with getting things ready. The next week I had family in town and the funeral. I could’ve used another day, since family was still around after the funeral.

        In terms of life and work, we shouldn’t be that constrained when something major happens. Work is just not that important compared to something like this. I understand having limits, but for parents, spouses, or children, that shouldn’t be limited to 3-5 days. It’s just not enough time to deal with everything that happens, and I’m sure with a spouse or child, you couldn’t even function at a job in less than a week.

    7. Llama Llama*

      My work has recently bumped op their bereavement leave from 3 days to 5 and to 4 weeks for child, spouse, or domestic partner. 3 days was honestly crap when you have to travel across the country for a funeral or actually have to do any of the logistics.

      1. Banana*

        Mine offers 3 with a limited list of relationships, but in action allows as much time as you need for any kind of loss, although outside the list and the 3 days it needs to be your own PTO. The only time I had someone without earned PTO to cover, we allowed her to go negative on PTO rather than take the time unpaid, but that was a case-by-case decision and not a policy.

    8. yarnowl*

      I agree on the bereavement leave. My current company offers 10 days of bereavement leave a year that’s like PTO; we’re not limited to who we can use it for or how much we can use at a time. So when I had a family member pass I was just able to request it in our system like PTO, let my manager know what was going on, and take the leave. I like that system a lot.

    9. Lab Boss*

      Jumping onto the bereavement leave comment: OP, how flexible is your policy on WHEN people take bereavement leave? When my grandmother died I was able to take 2 of my 3 allotted days to do funeral stuff, and then take the third day a month or so later to go help with cleaning her house. Our system wasn’t really set up like that (I had to make two different “dead grandmother” claims in our time tracking software) but my boss just approved it all.

      I’ve always understood that “bereavement leave” isn’t intended to last as long as the full grieving process (which can be effectively endless) but rather to give you time to tame the immediate emotional storm and handle death logistics. Death logistics don’t always happen in a tidy set of consecutive days.

      1. GythaOgden*

        We get compassionate leave for close relatives and special leave for funerals. Unfortunately the older members of my family have been leaving us, and so I’ve been to quite a few funerals in the last 7 years (beginning with my grandmother’s in 2015 and ending with my great aunt this February; my closest living elderly relatives are now my MIL and her sister). In most cases I’d hope flexibility was OK — we get 5 days bereavement/compassionate leave for close relatives but special leave is used for others (and it was what I applied for with my great aunt). It might not be classed as CL, but it probably would come under SL, personal days, whatever.

        Animals are more ambivalent to deal with, but that’s why having special leave/personal days is a good category — it leaves it as discretionary rather than forcing someone to list out specifics. (Sophie gets to take her cat to the vet to be put to sleep; Thomasina needs to sort through her stuff after a bad flood; and true story, my hubby had to go to A&E and have a very delicate matter attended to and it would have been tough to get into work before I had to turn round and come home again). It would be the way I’d categorise it if constructing a benefits system. Just take the day and let’s not quibble about the specifics.

    10. Jen*

      Yes. My company went from 3 days to 5 this year. Weeks later, my father passed, and I was grateful for the 5 days since it took a day of travel to go to/from, several days to help my mom plan, and then the actual services.

      And…because he’ll be buried in Arlington in some far off date (they’re backlogged), I’ll have to take another 3 day minimum PTO for that. I also dread my mother passing and having to deal with her estate.

      5 days is a minimum for close family. We do have less for distant family/friends.

    11. FormerProducer*

      Just chiming in to say yes, 3 days is not enough. I was at a different company when each parent died and got 2-3 weeks both times, and that was also not enough but at least I could travel and plan a funeral and probate the will in that time.

    12. MarfisaTheLibrarian*

      When my grandfather died, I was working at a Jewish college, and because of the tradition of sitting shiva, the bereavement leave was so generous and humane. I got a full week off to go to the funeral, visit with family, and support my mom. And that was a grandparent, not even a child or parent.
      Give people a week, OP. It’s not like people are going to be needing to take this leave all the time (I hope!), so that extra two days is a comparatively little thing for the company but hugely important for the people who end up needing bereavement leave. A week lets them sort the logistics *and* possibly have a couple days to sit at home and cry, rather than having to go back to work the day after the funeral when they haven’t had time to even breath.

  6. An Admin*

    I’ve always liked the idea of a health stipend/benefit – a set amount each month that employees can use for gym memberships or home gym equipment or activity watches, meal delivery services like Freshly or Hello Fresh, therapy(mental or physical or both). Something that has a broad list of what it can be used for so it’s inclusive of all abilities. I think something like that shows that an employer knows that an employees day extends beyond the work day and your personal health and well-being is important.

      1. louvella*

        My organization offers a HRA but it’s just for medical expenses that go toward your deductible, not flexible things like gym memberships. (No clue if that varies between HRAs, this is the only time I’ve had one). I have never had an opportunity to use it because I’ve only had routine medical care since working here and it doesn’t reimburse for copays. But our deductible is $2500 and we have a $2500 HRA, so I believe if I was say, hospitalized, it wouldn’t have as much of a financial impact. (But someone correct me if I’m wrong about everything, I have not paid much attention to the benefit since I haven’t had to use it!)

        1. BPT*

          I also have an HRA and love it. Our deductible is $3500, but we only pay the first $750, and then the HRA comes in and pays the rest of the deductible for the year. (I mean, fully covered would be great, but still better than having to pay $3500 out of pocket).

      2. Former Recruiter, Current HR Generalist*

        A Lifestyle Spending and Wellness Account (LSWA) would probably be best for that!

    3. Another Admin*

      Yup! I get $500 at my job and my husband gets a generous $1500!!! We use it for our Costco membership, Blue Apron boxes, my husband can use his to buy guitars (I can’t), and we’ve bought hiking shoes in the past, too! It’s an amazing benefit!!

    4. Mm*

      I also really like this as a “use it or lose it benefit.” A previous company had this and it encouraged me to spend $150 on some very, very nice walking shoes. Honestly life changing.

      I think there are a surprising number of life changing tweaks that exist for an affordable amount – ergonomic mouse, stand/sit desk, gym membership. Being the company that helps someone afford those inspires a lot of loyalty.

    5. Spicy Tuna*

      I worked for an employer that gave everyone a set amount of money to be used for health care. You *had* to opt into one of the insurance options they offered, but if you were only insuring yourself, there was quite a bit of money left over that could be used for anything, not just health related. The amount was quite generous, so unless someone was insuring a LOT of dependents on the super high end plan, there was typically at least some money left over.

    6. Yorick*

      My husband’s job has this, it’s a pretty generous annual amount for memberships, equipment, events, etc.

    7. Education Mike*

      My bff has this and they can use it for anything “self care” with the Cosmo definition of self care: manicures, facials, massages, coloring books, tea, whatever.

      It’s definitely a luxury budget wise but I didn’t realize until I got a massage for the first time how helpful it was for my back. And facials do way more for my skin then tons of trips to the dermatologist ever did.

    8. Ben Marcus Consulting*

      A lot of these are taxable benefits, which is just the same as receiving cash. It doesn’t make sense for an organization to increase their administrative burden to help you spend your normal pay. Some of these might make sense in the way of group discounts, but the purchase still should come from the employee.

      Though, do check with your health plan. Some insurance carriers will cover a portion of monthly gym fees and fitness trackers, especially if you have a physician order that spells out why it’s important you have access.

      An EPA is a tax-free benefit that could be provided and it is common to include mental health services.

    9. JustaTech*

      My husband’s company has this and he’s used it to buy (part of) a bike and to pay (part) of his entry fee for an Ironman race.
      Other folks use it for gyms, home gym equipment, ebikes, all kinds of stuff. I don’t know if we could use it for Hello Fresh, but it’s worth looking into!

    1. Em*

      Yep! Agree. My husbands work offers 20% stipend and it makes a huge difference. We are able to choose a much high quality of care, which really puts our mind at ease.

    2. Betty*

      +1. Also any kind of support for ad-hoc or emergency care. E.g., if local schools take a holiday for Presidents’ Day but your office is open, that’s tough for single parent/dual career families; lots of families have been dealing with “daycare is shut down for a week for a COVID outbreak starting tomorrow” emergencies.

      Also, keeping in mind that not all caregivers are parents, and being inclusive of any kinds of primary caregiver roles (e.g., aunts/uncles/grandparents/older siblings may be guardians and primary caregivers in some families)

      1. SpaceySteph*

        Yes there are several companies out there that offer backup childcare benefits. It doesn’t offer sick care (and not sure if they’d cover something like a daycare closing due to Covid outbreak if your child is potentially exposed but not sick) but does cover emergent and normal school closings.

      2. Been There*

        My employer offers childcare for sick children. Someone will come to your house to watch your kid, and you can call them pretty last minute.

        1. Orsoneko*

          We have this benefit through my husband’s employer, capped at something like 100 hours/year. I wasn’t really expecting to use it, but it ended up being a godsend this week when our five-month-old was too sick for daycare.

        1. lilsheba*

          Yes on site childcare would solve everything, literally. It would allow people to work and not miss any. This really needs to be a benefit everywhere.

          1. Ally McBeal*

            PLUS it could create a boom in the supply of childcare workers. I worked at a daycare when I was in high school and while the low pay didn’t matter so much back then, wages are unsustainable for hiring & retaining high-quality workers. Partially decentralizing daycare out of centers and into individual corporate offices would create a more competitive market as well as more job openings.

          2. This Old House*

            I mean, not really? My kids went to onsite daycare – it still cost an arm and a leg, it still closed for COVID exposures, water main breaks, power outages (and they have stricter standards than general workplace safety, I guess, so they’d often close for that infrastructure stuff while the office was still open to wait and see how long it took to resolve). I think it had all the issues of off-site daycare except the commute. Not that I didn’t love it, but it’s a convenience, not a panacea.

          3. Empress Matilda*

            I don’t think it does, actually. For one thing, there’s the commute – at the time my kids were in day care, I was commuting an hour or more each way on a crowded public transit vehicle. That’s bad enough when you only have to look out for yourself and your stuff, but when you’re also hauling a kid and a stroller and all their stuff, it’s an absolute nightmare. Then if the kid gets hungry and starts to scream on the way home, or there’s a transit delay that snafus everything up?

            Also, if I ever wanted to take a day off work and still needed my kids in care for some reason, I wouldn’t want to go all the way to the office to make that happen. Especially if I’m sick, or if the commute is very long – the benefit of having the care would be cancelled out by the logistics of getting the kids there and back.

            And finally, if I were to change jobs, would that mean losing my daycare spot? Wait lists for daycare were 6+ months when my kids were younger, and very few people have that much lead time when it comes to changing jobs.

            Don’t get me wrong, I’m very much in favour of subsidized child care! I firmly believe it’s a public good, not an individual convenience. But unfortunately, onsite day care isn’t as equitable as it might seem at first – there are lots of families who might need care, who wouldn’t be able to access it in this way.

      2. DANGER: Gumption Ahead*

        Same. Our work finally, finally, finally started offering a $2000 monthly stipend for child/elder care which is something like 50% of the median cost of day care for 0-5 in our area and about 30% for home health care. We are still trying to figure out a sustainable way to do onsite care. We are looking into partnering with a university that has an early childhood development program and make it part of a training program that we could open up to the communities we serve, but it is early days yet.

      3. MigraineMonth*

        Also childless by choice, also agree this is the most important “stretch” benefit a company can offer. The childcare professionals should be employees with a decent salary and benefits, too.

      4. WantonSeedStitch*

        This. It means that we parents are better able to keep the same hours and do the same amount of work as our childless coworkers.

    4. Massive Dynamic*

      And extreme flexibility when a child is sick. There is nowhere to send a sick kid. They stay home, with their parents/guardians who may or may not be able to work as well during that time.

    6. anonymouse*

      I agree but would change this to dependent care so it’s more encompassing. I’m childless because I’ll be the sole caregiver for my mom once her medical conditions progress past the no return phase.

  8. Big Bird*

    Consider adding automatic enrollment to your 401(k)–meaning that everyone automatically contributes to the plan unless they specifically opt out. (Many plans start out at 3% of pay but 6% of pay is becoming more common.) AE is considered a best practice nowadays. There is also auto-escalation, meaning that every year the contribution goes up by an additional percent. And if your plan meets certain rules employees can withdraw their contributions if they change their mind in the first 30-90 days.

    1. UK benefits*

      In the UK by law if you’re over I think it’s 21 or 22, you have to automatically be enrolled into the pension plan and the minimum contribution is 3% employee, 5% employer (so 8% total). It saves people the hassle of having to remember to enrol when they join, but people can specifically opt out if they want to.

    2. High Score!*

      A larger match. I have friends with a 10% 401k contribution. So whether they participate or not, they get 10% of their salary put into a 401k account. This is in addition to a competitive salary.

    3. BethRA*

      I understand how that would increase participation, but how does defaulting to having part of someone’s pay check divert to a 401k plan make benefits more equitable or inclusive?

      Safe Harbor plans with an automatic employer contribution I get. But I’m not sure I’d have been happy having to take extra steps to reduce what came out of my pay back when I was just scraping by.

      1. RG2*

        There’s a ton of behavioral economics research that people want to set up contributions but don’t get around to it because… people. So companies saying “this is the default for your paycheck and here’s the deadline to tell us if you want something different to happen” hugely increases participation in retirement savings without increasing dissatisfaction.

        1. BethRA*

          Like I said, I get that/how it increases participation. But OP is asking for ways to make their benefits more equitable and inclusive – and I’m asking how trying to push more people into your 401k plan does that.

          1. BethRA*

            And to clarify, I’m not saying it’s a bad idea – I”m asking if/how it addresses those issues. Because I know I might be missing something.

            1. BubbleTea*

              Women have far less saved for retirement than men, and that gap is compounded by ethnicity. People from low income backgrounds are disproportionately affected by a lack of savings for later life, being less likely to have conveniently timed inheritances. There are lots of ways in which retirement savings slightly redresses some of the inequities that exist.

          2. Snow Globe*

            Broadly speaking, people who grew up in lower income households are a lot less likely to have been given sound financial education from their parents, which would include emphasizing how important it is to start saving early for retirement, due to compounding effect. So those people may not understand the importance of signing up for the 401k as early as they can. But most will be happy to pay in if it is automatic.

            1. Aitch Arr*

              What Snow Globe said.

              Especially if there is a match, non-participants are throwing away free money.

              1. JustSomeone*

                I hope this doesn’t come across as hostile, but I have to say I really hate that phrase. It’s so often used to denigrate people in poverty—if those fools would just stop throwing away money, they’d be financially successful/stable. This is just yet another way that it’s expensive to be poor. If you can’t afford to defer any portion of your salary, it doesn’t matter how amazing the “free money” match is.

                1. Aitch Arr*

                  The ‘free money’ phrase?

                  I think it’s accurate when discussing a match, though your point is well-taken that if one can’t afford a 401k contribution of any sort, the match is a moot point.

                3. The Real Fran Fine*

                  If you can’t afford to defer any portion of your salary, it doesn’t matter how amazing the “free money” match is.

                  Thank you for saying this. The tone deafness in this thread was astounding. Many people make minimum wage or damn near close to it. How in the world
                  are they putting away money they don’t have?

                  I experienced this myself early in my career. In fact, I didn’t start regularly putting money away into a 401K until I was in my early 30s, and I had a mother who worked and had a portion of her paycheck automatically deferred to her company’s retirement plan, so I understood the importance – I just wasn’t making any money and I had student loans out the ass. I needed every single cent from my paycheck upfront at that point in my life, or I would have ended up homeless. One of the companies I worked for had the audacity to do the auto-enroll unless you opt-out thing, and didn’t tell me when I started, so after six months I got a pretty nasty surprise when my check was shorted $40. That may not seem like a lot, but it is when you’re barely making it and every dollar is already accounted for in rent, utilities, food, and bills.

                  Just say no to auto-enrollments, folks.

      2. Hen in a Windstorm*

        There’s research on opt-in versus opt-out of retirement plans. Opt-out is better in every way for the *employee*.

        I’d say the number one reason I hear people give for not contributing is that they really don’t get the math – I’m pretty smart, and I didn’t get the math in theory, and I waited way longer than I should have to start contributing. I had to actually calculate it with an online calculator to see how little effect it would have on my take-home pay. And then I kicked myself for not starting sooner. Opt-out avoids all that.

        Also, pretty sure the OP’s list above indicates they are *giving* 3%, so it would not be a deduction, it would be a bonus.

    4. Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain*

      My org does an automatic enrollment, but it’s 1% for mandatory contribution, and they match 100% up to the max. I think 3% mandatory seems high to me (especially for young entry level workers) even though I voluntarily contribute more than that. I’d be unhappy if it was mandatory 6%.

      1. Cj*

        but it’s not really mandatory, just automatic enrollment. you have to take the extra step to opt out instead of opt-in, but that doesn’t mean it’s mandatory.

      2. KRM*

        But a large number of places allow you to contribute pre-tax, so the effect on your pay is not the full amount. It would help to not only have opt-out, but also calculators that show the actual effect on your take home pay. That way if you’re not sure you can afford 3%, you can do the real math and see what the net actually is–it won’t be perfect, but it’ll be a better reflection of reality than saying “oh I can’t afford to miss 3% of my pay”. This can allow for more informed decision making.

    5. JSPA*

      i was coming to say the opposite- – don’t remember the details, but I know we ran into a circumstance where being automatically in in a 401(k) messed with someone’s other retirement plan or some other set of benefits. couldn’t tell you if it was just an IRA vs 401(k) or something more unusual (trust, survivor benefits, support for disabled kid, something having to do with international taxes????). As wonderful as it normally is to get stuff for nothing, it’s still essential to have an opt out procedure, just in case it’s not good for someone.

      1. Hen in a Windstorm*

        Automatic enrollment doesn’t preclude opting out. Also, your point seems to be that since 1 person was inconvenienced this 1 time, somehow that’s an argument against a benefit for everyone else?

        And just so nobody else gets confused by this, IRA and 401k/403b contributions have separate limits, so it could not have been that.

        1. Willow*

          If you have an employer sponsored retirement plan you can’t contribute to a traditional IRA and deduct the contribution, and there are income limits governing whether you can contribute to a Roth IRA.

          1. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

            Not many restrictions for a Roth IRA — restrictions/reductions don’t kick in until you reach a modified AGI of $129,000 (single) or $204,000 (married filing jointly).

            You can NEVER deduct a Roth IRA contribution – BUT anything that Roth IRA earns going forward through the years, isn’t taxable, even when you start taking it (after 59 1/2, I believe). And you don’t have mandatory withdrawals, as you do with 401Ks or Traditional IRAs.

      2. Aitch Arr*

        It was likely that an employee started a new job after the first payroll of the year, so they had contributed to a 401(k) elsewhere and then didn’t take that contribution into account at the new employer. They therefore went over the IRS max.

        That’s on the employee, frankly.

    6. NW Mossy*

      Retirement plan pro here. I can almost guarantee you that your retirement plan vendors will be thrilled to hear that an employer’s interested in automatic enrollment. Most want to upsell you on this already because it increases the overall assets of the plan, which means more $$$ in their pockets from asset-based fees. But here’s some advice they may not be as forthcoming about:

      – Automatic enrollment/escalation is a data-driven process. It’s so very critical to make sure you’ve got good quality data about your employees and payroll, because any mistakes you have in that data will compound themselves in automatic enrollment. This is especially true if your business has a lot of employees and/or a high-turnover workforce, because more data = more opportunities for it to be bad in some way.

      – If you’re considering automatic enrollment because you have low participation today, consider pairing it with other choices that play nicely with a low-engagement workforce. Pick a Qualified Default Investment Alternative (QDIA) that will take in participant dollars without them having to choose their own investments. Use automatic rollover provisions that will allow you to transfer small accounts to an IRA provider after the employee leaves your organization. Deliver documents electronically so that you don’t have to chase down a new address every time someone moves.

      – Know your obligations. Be aware of what your retirement plan vendors do and do not do for you (hint: read your service agreements!). Almost every single automatic enrollment disaster I’ve seen got to be that bad in least in part because the employer thought “oh, my vendor handles that,” and thereby ignored a responsibility. If you don’t think your organization is up to the responsibilities of automatic enrollment, wait until you are.

      – If you add this to your plan, give yourself a long runway between deciding to do it and the go-live date. 6 months is ideal; deciding today, to do it for January 1 2023 is not. You need time to prepare your payroll department, your payroll vendor, your employees, and everyone else involved. Rushing this leads to mistakes and misunderstandings.

      1. Libratrix*

        I think this is all great, and I would add to make sure you have low cost investment vehicles available.

    7. Bridget*

      Only support doing this if there’s a company match. My company has an opt-out only 401k but doesn’t do any matching, so it wasn’t really worth it to me. Plus I wasn’t eligible until I had been here for a year, and being a military spouse I’ll be leaving in another year, so by the time I got everything set up it would have only been 10 months of contributions. Not worth it.

      Now, if I had been eligible when I started, there was a company match, and I would be 100% vested immediately in the matched funds, then I would have absolutely taken it.

      1. mlem*

        Mine did the “opt-out, no match” plan, which meant I had to create an account with Prudential just to say “no, I hate all your plans and will stick with my pre-existing one”. There was zero benefit to me but plenty for Prudential’s marketing arm — all my personal data for free! Not a fan.

    1. The Real Fran Fine*

      Right! Lol. My current company has pretty good benefits, don’t get me wrong, but not anything this extensive. This list is amazing.

  10. BritSouthAfricanAmericanHybrid*

    I am not sure how feasible this is, but three days bereavement leave is not enough for those people who have relatives who live in another country. When my father passed away, I had to fly to the UK. I took all my (meagre) vacation to fly there, help with the funeral arrangements, and help my mother afterwards. Although I do not expect a company to give its people 2 weeks bereavement leave, on top of all the other leave they offer, 5 days or even 7 days would have helped me so much.

    1. Sarah*

      My employer allows 3 additional bereavement days if you have to travel more than a certain distance for the funeral. Really helpful when you have family that lives far away.

      1. SpaceySteph*

        My employer offers an extra day on each end for travel out of state, and another day on either end on top of that for international travel.

    2. Bernice Clifton*

      This is what I was going to say. I was lucky enough to get a week of paid bereavement when my mom passed away.

      1. Anonym*

        I noted this above as well – my company offers a week bereavement, which is really important not only for grieving but dealing with the logistics.

        OP, please consider increasing the offering in this category! You’re actually a little low here.

        1. I Wrote This in the Bathroom*

          Hear, hear! I got three days for my dad and it was only sort of enough because he died late Thursday night and so my 3 days had the weekend added in the middle of them. And even so, it was only barely enough for the logistics (which there was very little of, as we are a small family and dad was on SSI and didn’t leave any inheritance). I kind of stuck the whole grieving process in the back pocket while dealing with things like haggling with the funeral home and getting his accounts in order. That probably wasn’t healthy for me in the long run! Definitely can use more for immediate family.

    3. WellRed*

      Yes. I commented above. My first three days of leave was supporting mom, visiting dad and making the decision to not continue measures. Then he died and we had to make arrangements and plans and all that for out of state. Thank fully my company is more generous.

    4. Eliot Waugh*

      You could have 3 days for any human, but extend that (10 days, non-continuous?) when the employee is responsible for any funeral arrangements or managing the estate of the deceased.

      1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

        I like this solution.

        It took me three days to go to my grandpa’s funeral (I drove a thousand miles in those three days, and since I’m British that’s equivalent to about ten thousand miles US) and all I had to do was show up.

      2. Mr. Shark*

        yes. For parents, children, siblings and spouses, I think 7 -10 days is reasonable. Also, a lot of times with direct relatives, there’s some time before the death that could eat up time, if the person is already in bad shape and then passes away. So I understand the need not to give away too much time for those people that may take advantage of it, but really, for my father’s passing, I had a week in which he was in the hospital, and I was lucky enough to work half-days so I could be with him.

        And then once he passed, I ended up having 7 days off, when I really could’ve used 10 days to deal with everything, especially since it was in a different state.

        Thankfully, my company was really good about it and just let me take what I needed. I did come back on day 8, but I should’ve probably taken another day at least.

        But I would fight for 3 days for less immediate relatives and 7-10 days for children, siblings, spouses and parents.

      3. A*

        Or have to travel for the memorial service. At least in my area the majority of individuals are ‘transplants’, it’s not common for people to stay in the same region they were born and raised. When I had an immediate family member pass away a few years ago, I was not responsible for the estate or planning the service – but I had to fly cross country for the ceremony mid week. Two of the three days were almost entirely lost to travel… so I had just enough time to attend the ceremony and show my face at the reception before having to drive back to a hotel near the airport a few hours away.

    5. That one over there*

      It’s hard to imagine going back to work 3 days after the lose of a spouse, partner, child, sibling or other close person in an employees life.

      I had a friend that had to go on extended leave of absence after the death of her husband. She was eventually fired. I understand the company is a business that needs to function. But Jesus she lost her life partner and is expected to return ready to go? I don’t think so.

      1. WellRed*

        I can’t imagine going back to work quickly. This is also why life insurance is so important. I keep shouting this from the rooftop. OP, I assume you offer life insurance?

      2. Education Mike*

        This is horrible. My best friend lost her brother and took 2 months off. The company gave her a bonus when she came back because they knew she had covered the funeral expenses.

        It wasn’t the best job but she stayed for ages because they treated her so well.

        1. Mr. Shark*

          I understand that concept, but really, lousing a spouse or a child, how could you expect someone to be able to focus on work. I know sometimes people want to work because it takes their mind off of their loss. But I don’t think asking for 7-10 days is unreasonable in the instance of more immediate family.

          Work is work. Losing someone important to you is so much more important than any work you could be doing. Your employer should have some compassion. Things will still get done when you’re gone, and the world won’t end if you take a few more days than the three days needed to make arrangements.

        2. Catwhisperer*

          Lol have fun trying to handle all the logistics in 3 days when you’re the sole beneficiary and live in a completely different country. I’m guessing you’ve never been in that situation, otherwise you’d have a bit more compassion.

    6. Boom! Tetris for Jeff!*

      On top of potential travel for funeral arrangements, there are other cultural expectations sometimes. This is Canadian First Nation perspective (i’m sure not all of them have the same practices, but some do), but may apply to some US indigenous peoples too. They are expected to participate in community events for deaths in their community. So if you are a well respected member of the community, you may be asked to perform a specific role, which can take a few days, multiple times a year. And it doesn’t have to be a close relative at all. With opioid crisis and other systemic issues that indigenous communities face, their death rates are … well… kinda high.

    7. anonymouse*

      If it’s not possible to offer more bereavement leave maybe at least make the plan a little more flexible? It won’t protect against a bad manager but it might give a good manager room to say if you need to do x, y, or z it’s not against our policies so that’s okay.

    8. Education Mike*

      I think regardless of travel, five or seven days should be given for someone who has a really close person if at all possible.

      My mom is sick, we live very close and I won’t have to do much planning, but I’m not going to be doing expense reports Friday if she dies Monday. The thought is darkly comical.

      I would also suggest flexibility with giving time off to support others. When my best friend lost a family member, she had no partner, so I did most of the stuff a spouse would do, including sleeping in her bed, going to an out of state funeral, etc.

      There is absolutely no world in which I would’ve left her to deal with that herself. I was nervous to try to explain to my boss why I needed these four days off urgently (travel, funeral, wake) and I was so incredibly thankful when my boss was completely understanding, and asked no questions (aside from how I was doing).

      On average, people are getting married later and later, and having kids later or not at all. For millennials and younger, LGBTQ folks, etc it’s so common that close friends play a role that people in more traditional family structures might imagine would be played by a spouse. I’m forever grateful to that boss who got that I was my best friends person, and I needed to do anything a spouse or partner would do.

      Also, in terms of offering additional days off for family members, death or allowing days off for a friends family members death I feel like this is the kind of thing that in theory sounds risky to some people, but rarely gets abused. People in the US hardly take their vacation time. If you don’t trust your employees not to invent funerals, you have bigger fish to fry.

    9. random person*

      It’s not even enough within the US.

      When my mom died, the company I worked for at the time gave me 4 or 5 days off (can’t remember exactly now), and that was… okay. My dad wasn’t really able to handle much himself, so the time included meeting with their lawyer, visiting and making a lot of phone calls to financial institutions, going through some of my mom’s things, and going to pick up copies of the death certificate, in addition to traveling there and back.

      I’m actually not sure what my current company offers (pretty new to this job) but if it’s only 3 days when my dad dies – that won’t cut it. It takes a day of travel to get to his location, so that would wipe out two thirds of that leave right there.

    10. Catwhisperer*

      +1, my company actually did give me 2 weeks bereavement leave when my mother passed in another country and it was barely enough for me to fly in and take care of all the logistics, especially since I’m an only child and she was divorced. I ended up taking a third week once I got back just to process, because I was so busy while I was gone that I just didn’t have the time. As a result of my company’s generosity, I came back to work focused enough to do my job at my regular capabilities.

    11. mdv*

      I’m a bit late to this thread, but in case someone still sees it: My employer allowed me to use an unlimited amount of vacation time when planning international trips for funerals, including my Oma (in Germany) and my father (who we took to bury in Germany from the US).

      If it doesn’t hurt your company, allowing complete flexibility for someone to deal with all that needs to be dealt with without dinging their annual leave balance … would be the absolute best case scenario. Especially if the person in question is the executor of the estate. The only way I was able to manage that for my dad was with the amazing amount of vacation time I had available to me as a state employee with a significant roll-over balance.

    1. Rapunzel*

      came here to ask this! my employer offers EAP coverage for the employee, household members, and dependents

    2. Chauncy Gardener*

      My company’s EAP is super extensive and offers things like legal advice (wills, power of attorney, etc), caregiving resource referrals, pet insurance, 3 different telemedicine options, etc etc. SO many things, it’s really incredible.

    3. Divergent*

      Please include coverage for general mental health spending over and above an EAP. I’m autistic, and my EAP is not set up to give me the specific kind of assistance I need, though it is set up to help plenty of more common issues like addictions, stress for neurotypicals, and “oh no my kid is autistic how do I cope”.

      The following would be super helpful to me:
      -cover a mental health provider of the employee’s choice, so for instance an autistic person or a nonmonogamous person isn’t forced to seek counseling from someone with no experience on those topics because of the network, or someone who needs a particular modality of counselor or a prescribing doc can access those.

      -cover ADHD and autism assessments

      -my current workplace has a “you don’t even need to log time off if you have a Dr’s appointment less than 2 hours and there’s no limit to it” and I have been using those for counseling, it has been *very helpful*

      1. HigherEdAdmin*

        Seconded! My employer has extremely generous benefits, but it doesn’t cover adult ADHD or autism diagnoses (and our insurance doesn’t either). In fact, they’re rolling out a service for teens and kids that need help with ADHD and autism coaching, but it completes leaves out the adults.

      1. ferrina*

        This is tough, because some mental health professionals won’t take insurance because of the amount of hoops they need to jump through to get reimbursed. Often they’ll have you pay up front, then you’ll get reimbursed from your insurance company.
        It would be nice if the EAP could help with those hoops.

    5. Keeley Jones, The Independent Woman*

      Yes. EAP, and preferably one where you can also use the EAP session for both therapy or a med consult. Our EAP covered 6 free sessions, two of which can be used with a psychiatrist to talk about medication (you can use all 6 for therapy) It saved me because my GP doctor didn’t have openings for months, but I was able to get an appointment through my EAP the next week.

  12. CheesePlease*

    – Paid parental leave if it’s not already a benefit (I assume since you are thinking of making benefits better, you probably already have it but worth mentioning)

    – allowing employees to flex hours or use sick time for doctors appointments instead of PTO (especially at least every 6mo for dental, annual physical and bloodwork)

    – 1-2 paid volunteer days (employees could provide documentation of their volunteer activity if needed). I would totally do this to volunteer at my local polling place on election day. I think it’s good way to give back to the community unofficially.

    1. Eric*

      And make sure the parental leave is inclusive of all paths to parenthood (adoption, surrogacy, single parents, etc)

      1. Quinalla*

        And I recommend making the parental leave equal for either parent – whether birthing/primary or non-birthing/secondary and make sure to make the language inclusive – birthing/primary (typically for adoption) parent instead of mother, non-birthing/secondary parent instead of father.

        Equalizing this helps to normalize all parental leave to help remove the stigma that still exists against women mostly that they are going to take all that maternity leave so maybe hire/promote that dude instead.

          1. CheesePlease*

            I thought that was simply implied by stating “parental leave” and not “maternity leave” lol silly progressive me

            2. Person from the Resume*

              But the birthing parent gets some “extra” days for their medical recovery from birth. The non-gestational parent doesn’t need days to recover from birth but they deserve the same number of days to bond with the child.

              1. CheesePlease*

                Personally, as a birthing mother, I’m much more in favor of a very broad 10 paid weeks for any employee who becomes a parent. Having my husband home with me and baby for more than 2 weeks would also help my healing process!

                Then, if a birthing parent wants to claim 6-8 weeks of short-term disability at the reduced pay rate, they can do so *in addition* to the paid leave. On top of that, all parents should be eligible for FMLA for 12 weeks for care / bonding

              2. Sara H*

                As someone who has given birth twice I actually prefer that my partner have the same leave as me. It allows the partner to contribute equally to care of the child and gives me time to get much needed rest. Otherwise you are caring for a newborn yourself while recovering physically. Plus when women take longer leaves than men it created inequities within the workforce.

                1. Mr. Shark*

                  I’m not a parent, but I have no problem with parents, the mother and the partner, getting 8 weeks of paid leave. They should be with their new child!

        2. Ditto*

          Or just make it a blanket every parent gets X amount of leave.

          My organization uses the primary/secondary distinction and the administration of it is awful. Primary/secondary only applies if both parents work for the organization. What we see in reality is that fathers whose spouse work elsewhere or stay home get 8 weeks of leave. Fathers whose spouse work there as well get 4 weeks of leave. That is not equitable at all.

          1. CheesePlease*

            This is sadly somewhat in line with FMLA laws where if partners work for the same company, the 12 weeks of eligibility are shared between them.

      2. Nowwhat465*

        This! My office was extremely progressive with parental leave except the way the leave policy was worded was extremely non-inclusive, to the point that non-birthing mothers/non-binary parents only got 6 weeks of unpaid leave while birth mothers and fathers (regardless of biological relation) got 8-12 weeks paid.

        During a survey a few years ago I was asked if I would ever consider leaving and I cited this policy as to why. Low and behold, the language was updated within a week to be gender inclusive and allow similar times off for non-birthing parents.

        1. Gan Ainm*

          Not sure I follow the issue here, can you explain? it’s pretty normal for the mother to get medical leave for the physical recovery from actually giving birth/surgery – this is often a few weeks on top of the parental leave for bonding and childcare, which any parent could get. It sounds like this is the set up your org had?

          1. one L lana*

            It’s normal in the US to do it this way because that’s how it’s always been done — pregnancy/labor recovery is seen as a medical issue (that’s why short-term disability is often used to cover leave).

            But companies are increasingly rethinking this and making parental leave about bonding, adjustment to being a family, etc. My company does 16 weeks of paid leave for anyone who becomes a parent, period. Very much the standard among more inclusive companies.

            OP, consider having an explicit policy for time off around pregnancy loss as well.

            1. Gan Ainm*

              I’d argue giving leave specifically for medical recovery, with separate bonding leave, is in fact the correct way to do it, to do otherwise disregards very physical process women go through to give birth. We already vastly underestimate Women’s healthcare needs, I don’t think we want to compound that by eliminating medical leave for one if the most significant healthcare experiences a human can have.

          2. Zephy*

            I might be reading it wrong but I think the problem is that the wording of the policy granted the extra medical recovery time to people who could not possibly need it, i.e., “birth fathers” (which I’m interpreting to mean AMAB individuals with spouses who gave birth). People who give birth absolutely need and deserve time to recover from that experience, but that does not apply to, if I may be crass for a moment, the sperm donor in this situation. Either everyone gets 8-12 weeks or only the actual person who actually built and expelled a whole-assed baby gets the “extra” 4-6 weeks, otherwise the policy is not fair.

            1. Zephy*

              My kingdom for an edit button.

              “Recovery from pregnancy” leave should be a separate thing from “family/parental” leave, because those are two separate Major Life Events. Calling it that would also cover pregnancy loss (I agree, that should also be considered), as well as people who give birth but then don’t need time after they’ve physically recovered to figure out how to live with a baby (surrogates and people who choose to carry to term and then place the child for adoption).

            2. Lellow*

              The part of my birthing recovery during which my wife wasn’t working and could spend that time caring for me and our infant was extremely beneficial to me, I have to say! Equal leave for both parents, pls.

          3. Nowwhat465*

            The wording was specific to maternity leave (birthing mothers only), and then paternity leave for fathers. Maternity leave was 12 weeks (including short term disability); paternal (specifically for fathers) was 8 weeks. They did not have anything for mothers who did not give birth.

            Initially when I joined the company and asked about it, the HR Officer assigned to me informed me they do not offer leave for adoptive parents outside of FMLA. And that approval could take weeks. So a couple years later as they tried to change the culture, I answered that survey honestly. I would likely leave when it came time to start my family as there is no coverage for me.

            Our new HR Director immediately updated the language. Turns out, I would be covered but the employee manual had such traditional definitions of parents, that for many years we were excluded.

        2. DataSci*

          I would have been over the moon for six weeks for non-birthing parents! When we adopted our son I was offered TWO WEEKS.

    2. JustKnope*

      For parental leave, I really like how my employer does it. The person who gives birth gets 8 weeks of leave, and then any person who adds a child to their family (through birth, adoption, or fostering) can take 10 weeks of parental leave, 100% paid. So when I give birth next year I’ll get 18 weeks off, and if my partner worked for the company he would get 10 weeks off. The other perk of how they organize it is that the leave does NOT have to be consecutive. So I know many couples who both work here who stagger their weeks off. One woman I know even calculated how many days it would take her to have every Friday off for the rest of the year after her mat leave, and then came back exactly that early so she could have 4 day work weeks. The flexibility is key.

      1. SpaceySteph*

        I am so torn on this because if the birth-giver gets more leave it still creates an environment where primarily women are seen as more of a liability that they’ll get pregnant and take too much time off and also where primarily mothers become the default caregiver because they spend more time with their newborns than fathers. (I understand not all birth-givers are women, but that doesn’t stop middle managers from hesitating to add late 20s women to their staff )

        On the other hand I’ve given birth 3x and would love for folks to acknowledge that I needed leave for healing myself from a medical event not just to snuggle my baby.

        1. Lellow*

          But wouldn’t you want your partner to also be on leave during that time so they can care for you? I certainly wanted that!

        2. Sara H*

          I agree with all of this. Though will add having my partner home with me during my leaved helped my physical recovery. He wasn’t just cuddling a baby, he was helping his wife recover from major physical trauma. So I think the physical impact can still be addressed when considering leave for non-birthing people, and maybe even more widely acknowledged in our society if man participate more in post-partum care.

      2. sara*

        afaik (I’m an auntie not a parent) this is vaguely similar to the logic in Canada. Birthing parent gets leave to cover their medical needs of having given birth. Any parent then gets leave to cover being a new parent.

        1. KGD*

          Yes, that’s how it works in Canada – I think 4 months for “pregnancy leave” and an additional 8 or 14 months for parental leave, where you get the same amount of money from EI regardless of which option you choose. One thing I love that they recently added was an additional 6 weeks of use-it-or-lose it time for the non-birthing parent, specifically to encourage equity within relationships. My husband took this time with our second and not our first, and it made a massive difference in our division of labour in the infant stage.

    3. kristinyc*

      For parental leave – after having given birth, I believe that the person who gives birth should have a set amount of weeks (at least the minimum 6-8 weeks short term disability covers), and then ALL parents should get whatever the company deems as parental leave (on top of the “recovery from childbirth” time). At my last job, everyone got 12 weeks, with 4-8 weeks paid at 60% (depending on your tenure at the company). The difference was men/non-birthing parents had that time paid by the company, and birthing parents had it paid by STD insurance. It made me feel like the company was more willing to invest in time off for the dads/non-birthing parents than the ones who went through the physical trauma of pregnancy/childbirth.

      1. parental leave*

        I also would recommend having a set amount of parental leave and giving parents flexible time to use it. My company gave us 12 weeks of parental leave that could be taken at any point within a year after adding a child to your family. This meant that I could take leave after my wife was back to work.

        Second everyone’s comments about giving parental leave to all parents irrespective of how they became parents.

      2. DataSci*

        Please do not assume all families include a person who gave birth. Policies that do, and that the birthing parent will take most of the infant childcare duties, place adoptive parents in a really tough place.

        1. CheesePlease*

          Yeah I’m much more in favor of a very broad 10 paid weeks for any employee who becomes a parent. If a birthing parent wants to claim 6-8 weeks of short-term disability at the reduced pay rate, they can do so. On top of that, all parents should be eligible for FMLA for 12 weeks for care / bonding

        2. Mr. Shark*

          I can see that new parents should have a specific amount of leave, but the birthing parent would have additional leave just to help heal through the birthing process. I think that makes sense.

    4. Ashley*

      On the flex hours, don’t be like the employer this morning for docking PTO and letting people adjust their schedule as much as reasonable.

    5. Jack Straw from Wichita*

      Seconding (or probably 500thing, I haven’t read all the comments yet) the volunteer leave and wellness leave. The org I work for has both (12 hours of each a year), and they are one of my favorite things about our benefits.

    1. CatCat*

      This is a great suggestion. I worked at a place that did pre-tax parking, subsidized mass transit passes, and even a bike commuter stipend (small, but certainly helpful to cover some of the costs of wear and tear on a commuter bike).

      1. The Prettiest Curse*

        I live in a very bike-friendly city and have many colleagues who commute by bike. We have secure bike parking and regular free bike repair clinics. There are also showers on every floor of the building.

        Subsidised transit passes and discounted parking would also be useful for those who commute in other ways.

    2. Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain*

      Around a large metro area like Los Angeles, San Francisco, NY, Dallas, DC, etc, that would be minimum expected. It would also be nice if the company can do the research and advertise any city/county/state programs that help commuters. I’m basing this on living in Los Angeles, but there are usually some sort of incentive programs in large metro areas for using public transport, bike, or car/van pooling. Maybe make parking free for carpooling.

      Along the line of commuting, if the company owns their own lots, start adding charging stations for EVs.

    3. Hen in a Windstorm*

      Oh, yeah, my last nonprofit job had this. If you were a transit commuter, you got those benefits, if you drove, you got parking benefits at a lot across the street.

    5. Willow Sunstar*

      For sure, especially if the company is going to require people to be in the office at least part of the time.

    6. Lentils*

      My current job fully covers bus/transit cards for everyone, which is a godsend (especially because many of the routes into the city require more than 1 bus, and the most direct route is almost $5/ride).

    7. Mr. Shark*

      Yes, commuting subsidizing is a great idea. My last company paid for bus pass / partial train/ferry passes. Depending on position (if you had to travel for work) they would pay for parking pass.

  14. Charlotte Lucas*

    Add adoption to maternity/paternity benefits. I had a coworker who adopted & had to use all PTO, because it wasn’t included as a maternity benefit. Not only did she still have a newborn baby at home, but she missed out on some of the bonding time that other new mothers at the company got.

    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      And this shouldn’t just be for adopting infants. A child of any age needs to bond with new parents. (If this could be extended to foster parents, even better!)

    3. Miss Muffet*

      Yes – make adoption leave equal to whatever you are giving for birth-giving parents. So if you give 6weeks of “short term disability” for maternity leave, plus 12 weeks of paid parental leave, for instance, give 18 weeks of parental leave for adoptive parents. The reality is that while some parents need the actual ‘disability leave’ part, they don’t usually need it for all 6 weeks, and most are doing the same stuff that any adoptive parent is doing for all that time. Just make it equal. It shows that you consider families formed by any process as equal.

      1. Gan Ainm*

        I disagree with this, carrying a child and giving birth is an intense physical and medical event that deserves medical leave to recover from. if adoptive parents aren’t getting the support they need the answer is to address that, not dismissively erase womens medical leave as unnecessary or unimportant.

        1. DataSci*

          It’s not pie. Nobody’s taking away your leave to give it to the adoptive parents who at many places currently get NOTHING. They’re just giving people who build families in other ways leave, too.

        2. Em*

          Parental leave is for bonding too. It is absurd to say that adoptive parents do not deserve equal leave. This person isn’t saying take away disability, they are saying if that is worked in the equation as part of the leave, give adopted parents the opportunity to have as much time off.

      2. Temperance*

        It’s not about considering families to be “equal”; birth is a major medical event and I think that the six-week disability period isn’t even truly adequate. Recognizing this doesn’t cause harm, but minimizing it absolutely does. Pregnancy and the possibility of such has been used to disadvantage women in the workplace for years and years.

    4. amcb13*

      Also other major household changes that aren’t as “official” as adoption–people with a parent/nibling/godchild/etc. moving in and requiring care would also benefit from time off, especially if there’s the option to take it nonconsecutively (medical appointments, school enrollment, child or elder care enrollment, etc.)

  15. Smithy*

    While I think that the bereavement policies are wonderfully generous – I do wonder if it makes sense to consider adding a tier for the loss of a child, parent or spouse/partner to 5 days.

    Very understandably, there will inevitably be people who have friends or other family members who are very close and a sudden passing would be very distressing and may need more than the three days. And I understand a desire with the current policy to not litigate this.

    However, the other nice part of having these policies written out, is that when you are in the later stages of a very close family member passing and you have more to take care of around immediate arrangements – being able to check a policy and know you have 5 days is one less thing you need to do as opposed to reaching out to your supervisor and asking how you can add another 2. Additionally, for those who are Jewish, sitting shiva typically requires 5 business days and for many Jews in the US, the more traditional scope of immediate family (inclusive of partner) would cover that.

    1. CheesePlease*

      Yes agree. If a close friend dies, days to process grief and attend any funeral services are necessary. If a partner dies, now you are probably dealing with lawyers, banks, grieving children, insurance etc etc – the paperwork and meetings you need to manage are certainly more involved. It could be even separated as “bereavement leave” and then “end of life management leave” or something so that people who have to deal with the terrible and difficult paperwork and logistics associated with death have time for that too.

      1. Close Friends*

        When my close friend died, her family was estranged. It fell on me and one other friend to deal with the lawyers, banks, insurance, and funeral planning (with the fun bonus of trying to track down estranged family members for things that absolutely legally required their signature, like moving the body from the hospital to the funeral home). I am grateful that my work granted me leave without comment and would strongly advise not crafting policies that assume you know what “tiers” of relationships demand what levels of involvement.

        1. Smithy*

          I think by adding a 3rd tier, there’s also an ability to add “at the discretion of the manager” for cases as you mention.

          There are lots of different family and personal support configurations, and including the ability of discretion with a manager is helpful in providing a place to start. The three day bereavement will be known to employees in advance, and then if it’s a case of a grandparent who was like a parent or the passing of a close friend very far away – it provides a basis to at least ask for those next two days either as bereavement or PTO.

          3-5 days is never completely enough time to close an estate or mourn or anything like that. And good employers also find ways to work with staff who need other accommodations, but just to flag that adding it in writing means that it’s known to employees in advanced instead of needing to be asked for.

          1. CheesePlease*

            Yeah, something like that. I don’t think any employer should say ‘I can’t give you bereavement because it doesn’t qualify by the rules’ but I also would like for employees to not have to justify why they need leave, and instead just ask for the extra X days given for any needs such as executer, estate management etc.

        3. Jj*

          thank you so much for saying this. I am the friend with estranged relatives, and essentially no family ties. I am totally dependent on my friends the way other people are on family. If a company doesn’t want to litigate things, I think a fair policy would be something like giving people space when hired to designate 5-10 (or however many) “immediate relationships” that are people they are extremely close to and logistically obligated to. Those could be the higher leave category and other losses of any kind could be a generous, but lesser leave. Very few people are going to game a system like that and for people with functional immediate families it will amount to the same thing as a typical policy, but for those of us without, it would be a life saver.

        4. Chosen fam*

          Seconding this a thousand times. My friend’s family were abusive and estranged. They did not deal with her assets and funeral, it was me and a group of her other friends who did. My work didn’t question the time off I requested, despite her not being family, and thank god they didn’t since I was not in the best state of mind at the time.

    2. CorpGirl*

      I know some companies will be flexible with the # of bereavement days they give you based on circumstances, so perhaps they could update the policy to say “additional days can be granted at manager’s discretion”? I recently had a friend who’s parent died (they were living together and in the process of selling their apartment), and her company ended up giving her several paid weeks off even though the policy was “up to 5 days”.

  17. Lapis Lazuli*

    Always a fan of the 4-day workweek where feasible, expanded paid parental leave, paid prenatal leave time, and flexible work from home options. Trying to think of things not already in the comments. Maybe a couple weeks for new pets and/or expanded vacation time as well?

    1. anonymouse*

      ohh yes flex scheduling would be a huge benefit! especially if you have folks working from home. my company works across multiple timezones so restricting me to 8am-5pm isn’t very logical.

  18. Llama Llover*

    This is a pretty generous list – relatively speaking – as it stands. I would take a look at how they’re worded. Spouse/partner instead of wife/husband and the like to remove gender as much as you can. If I can see myself in your language describing the benefit, I can see myself using it and finding it valuable to me.

    1. Prospect Gone Bad*

      If wife/husband can refer to a lesbian/gay relationship, why does it need to be removed? Maybe I’m crazy, but I would think lesbians like to say “wife” and not revert back to awkward 1980s phrasing like “partner” or “spouse” to hide their sexuality

      1. Marie*

        Because it’s gendered language. I’m heterosexual and use the word “partner” & “Spouse” interchangeably in my own relationship.

      2. Web Crawler*

        The reason is to cover non-binary people who don’t see themselves as a wife or a husband. “Partner” can also refer to domestic partners, not just spouses.

      3. irianamistifi*

        Because wife/husband are terms that apply to a specific gender, not necessarily a specific attraction. But there’s people out there who don’t identify specifically as male/masculine/female/feminine. Why not just use “Partner” which has the benefit of indicating the person is in a linked relationship and doesn’t have the gender baggage attached to it?

        Plus, “partner” gives additional flexibility for those on non-standard relationships.

      4. Ann Onymous*

        Wife/husband can be inclusive of multiple sexual orientations, but isn’t necessarily inclusive of all gender identities. A non-binary person may not want to be referred to as a husband or wife. Spouse or partner is inclusive of all couples, regardless of the sexual orientation or gender identify of the people involved.

  19. Prospect Gone Bad*

    the 401K is great. Keep up with things like that that impact a broad group of people. It’s great to generally be inclusive, but actually makes employees unhappy if you add benefits for groups that may not even be at the company but leave gaping problems unfixed. IME working with a lot of younger people, many who are not white, Asian, or Indian (which I absolutely hate to bring up, but I notice such a stark difference in groups so am mentioning it) are way too hesitant to start a 401K. I remember from my younger years that the first $40K or so was the worst to save because there is zero growth, it’s all savings and with no interest or dividends of any substance. Hence many people don’t even start. I do notice different groups being way more averse to it. I am tired of explaining to people we all struggle in the beginning and having them find new excuses not to contribute. I love you skip this back and forth and just throw some money at them.

    1. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

      Not only is your advice pertinent, it’s CRITICAL. I advise anyone who is under 40 to start one NOW. And if you have enough money to live on – view your 401`K (and Roth IRA, too) — as money off the top of your paycheck. It is far more important to make those contributions, than to take an extra vacation, or purchase a $50,000 SUV when your $25,000 sedan or mini-van will suffice.

      But do keep an eye on your investments!

  20. silly little public health worker*

    hey! one thing i’ve been able to offer for my team is flexible hours to accommodate childcare needs – as long as they’re in the office for things that are really critical, i give them a lot of leeway to take care of their kiddos. it’s actually helped productivity because we have coverage at non-standard times (this is important in our field specifically) and my affected staff aren’t spending as much $$ or brainspace on childcare which makes them happier.

    also – as a queer person trying to start a family – please check with your insurance carrier around who can qualify as a spouse/partner or dependent to be added to healthcare coverage, and if non-married partners can be added to things like health insurance, fertility care, etc. a lot of carriers switched from “partners are okay in some cases” to “married only” after marriage equality became the law of the land, but now many of us are concerned that this will get rolled back, and if the standard is married only it will kick our partners off our plans. knowing our partners would be protected – whether or not we were able to get married before marriage equality may end – would be HUGE.

    1. Lab Boss*

      I don’t want to jump on you here because I love your flexibility! But I do want to gently ask, are you giving that flexibility only to accommodate childcare needs? And if so, have you considered that you’re putting people without childcare needs in a position of having to support their colleagues’ flexible schedules?

      You’ve established that your team can function under a model of “be here for critical things, beyond that you can flex when you need to.” It’s not a huge step to go from doing that just for childcare, to extending it to everyone. It will be more equitable and probably be seen as a huge motivator/benefit to your team.

    2. municipal government jane*

      Yes! Inclusivity for fertility coverage is huge. If someone needs a diagnosis of primary infertility in order to access fertility care, lots of single and/or queer parents/parents-to-be will be excluded from coverage and will have to pay out of pocket.

      1. Sad lesbian*

        Yes! As someone currently attempting to navigate having a child as a woman married to a woman… it’s tough. Most insurance carriers require 6 insemination attempts before you qualify for fertility coverage. If you’re someone with “access to sperm” (this is how insurance companies define it), like a cisgender woman married to cisgender man, you can make 3 of those attempts naturally at home and then have to do 3 medicated to qualify for coverage.

        In other words, I’ll be paying for at least my first 6 attempts (3 unmedicated, 3 medicated) if they’re all unsuccessful, whereas an opposite-sex couple would only pay for 3 max. It makes sense biologically but is still upsetting.

        I’ve heard of some companies offering up a set dollar amount that all employees can use towards having children, whether that’s via adoption, insemination, IVF, surrogacy, or whatever else. To me personally, that would be a HUGE benefit.

  22. Lynn*

    Do you have a tuition reimbursement program for ongoing educational opportunities? That could be a big one.

    Also I think a big blind spot companies have had is on miscarriage management. Not all insurance companies cover the treatment of miscarriages (even if they would have fully covered the pregnancy had it successfully continued!) or have good leave and support policies around a miscarriage

    Also flex time and WFH rules, and potentially a stipend or program to provide home office support would be great!

    2. ferrina*

      It’s actually starting to be recommended to move away from tuition reimbursement to loan repayment. Part of the thought process is that the company is already benefiting from the education that you took out the loan for; they may or may not benefit from the on-going education.

      It’s also an equity initiative- for example, I came from lower class background and paid for my degree in scholarships and loans; my friend had her parents pay for her degree with no loans. I paid back $500 per month for well over a decade; she saved that money for a down payment on a house. Now she has a real estate investment as well as a degree, even though we both got the same degree and worked just as hard. Generational wealth is a big contributor to the wealth gap, and loan repayment helps a little in balancing that out. (Side note that generational wealth through property ownership also has a big impact, and property ownership was denied/forcibly removed with little/no compensation from racial minorities for a significant portion of America’s history. One example among many: Bruce’s Beach in California.)

      1. Lynn*

        That’s a great point, but I don’t think these programs have to be necessarily mutually exclusive! It could also depend on the education background of the employees at the company what is more impactful.

    3. mli25*

      It would be cool to have reimbursement for things like conferences or shorter term courses instead of full on degree programs. I have two degrees that are fully paid (one, in part, by a former employer) and so many companies focus on degrees instead of training/conferences/etc that help people keep their knowledge fresh. It should be generous enough to include an out of town conference fully paid (fee, travel, etc).

      1. Lab Boss*

        That can also be a direct benefit to the company, beyond the indirect benefits of engaging a diverse and happy set of employees. My company lets people volunteer as internal first responders and gets us basic first aid training, but there was some talk about how it would be nice to have some more extensively-trained people around in case of a more major emergency. I offered to pursue training on my own time if they’d reimburse, but was turned down because “Tuition reimbursement is only for a degree-granting program directly related to your specific job duties.”

      2. The Real Fran Fine*

        My company’s tuition reimbursement does just this. You can be reimbursed for licensing exams, conference travels, short term certificate programs, etc. up to the same amount they pay for an undergraduate degree. We also have a generous reimbursement amount for graduate degrees. It’s pretty awesome.

  23. Smithy*

    Medical Concierge Service.

    I had one employer get us this benefit after they switched our Health insurance for like the third time in 4 years. As part of the overall EAP services, the Medical Concierge was someone who could actually help you find a niche service provider in network, file claims to the insurance company, navigate disputed claims, etc. It was incredibly helpful.

    1. irianamistifi*

      Oh gosh yes. When I worked for a health insurance company, they offered this and it was amazing.

    3. MrsSwimmer*

      I would LOVE a benefit like this! I believe it would also save money for the company so win win!

  24. Michelle Smith*

    If you’re able to afford it, a professional development budget is a huge, huge asset to someone like me who loves learning. It would be really cool to just be able to go to a conference or take an online course without having to figure out how to pay for it out of my own salary! And it would be nice if it was flexible for whatever the employee wants to do that would be an asset to their position. So for example, to maintain an existing certification or to earn a new one.

    1. tiny_strawberries*

      Absolutely. I took advantage of my company’s generous PD budget to do a graduate certificate and it really helped me in my career.

      1. Michelle Smith*

        That’s awesome!! I’m in a graduate certificate program now, but unfortunately am having to pay out of pocket so it’s taking twice as long to complete.

    2. ferrina*

      YES! And making clear what the budget is. I hate jumping through hoops to try to figure out what my company will/won’t pay for. Just give me the budget range, and I’ll find something in that range.
      You can even level it by years- every 3 years you get a larger amount, or such.

    3. mli25*

      Commented something similar above. The amount provided should cover the expenses of the conference too, such as travel, in addition the conference fee itself.

    4. Fortune 100*

      THIS. Add in the ability to do this during working hours. That could mean flexing a 40hour schedule to let them attend daytime classes, or even letting employees spend X hours/month on learning while on the clock.
      My current company has gone a step farther by setting aside a day per month entirely for professional development — meetings strongly discouraged by upper management, online training provided by corporate training dept as well as subscription to external programs.

  25. Hmmm*

    Be flexible – people have lives outside of the office. Don’t nickel and dime someone who is a parent, someone who is going to school, someone has a doctors appt, bad weather, someone taking a fun class or meeting with friends.

    Let them make time up with coming in early/ staying late, taking a shorter lunch

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      Yep the management of PTO and how you charge folks can be much more impactful than what you technically offer.

    2. louvella*

      Honestly the biggest “benefit” I get at my workplace is that I can’t take a partial day of PTO. If I work at all that day, I don’t need to take PTO. If you’re going to be gone for a few hours, or even half the day, you just block it on your calendar, no questions asked.

    3. Lab Boss*

      Yes! Sometimes I think the most valuable phrase I use as a boss is “I don’t care.” So many people comin from other work environments will try to come to me with some elaborate justification for why they need time off or how they’ll make up for being 20 minutes late that day and I can just say “I don’t care why, do what you need to do, if you’re giving me an honest effort that’s good enough.”

  26. The One Who Burned the Popcorn*

    Re the 401K contribution: Aren’t you penalizing EEs who already contribute 6%? I’d be pretty peeved at a company that decreased my 401K match.

    1. Eric*

      As I read it, if you currently contribute 6%, you get a 6% match. Under new plan you get 3% automatically + 3% match, for the same 6%. So nobody is worse off, but people who contribute less than 6% are better off.

    2. CatCat*

      I read it as “everyone gets 3% contribution from the company regardless of whether they participate. After that 3%, they get 50% match up up to 6% that the employee sets aside.

      So anyone already contributing 6% sees no change. They get 3% automatically from the company. Then another 3% as 50% of their 6% contribution.

      But anyone who wasn’t contributing, will see a significant benefit. This is really helpful especially for people lower on the salary scale who may not be able to contribute.

      1. Lab Boss*

        Because I’m a big old numbers nerd, I worked out the full scale. Anyone who was maxing out their employer match (contributing 6% or more) will see no change. Anyone who was contributing less than 6% will benefit from the change, and with the benefit getting stronger the further down the contribution scale you went:

        0% contribution = 3% match (up from 0%)
        1% = 3.5% match
        2% = 4% match
        3% = 4.5% match
        4% = 5% match
        5% = 5.5% match
        6% = 6% match

    3. CheesePlease*

      “Currently a 100% company match on first 6% of compensation. This is being changed…if an employee defers 6% of pay, they get 3% company match” – to me this means that if you were contributing 6% previously, you got a 6% match. Now you only get a 50% match of that 6% ON TOP of a 3% automatic amount. It’s worded in a way that does make it confusing, so OP really should communicate it clearly.

  27. Ann Onymous*

    In addition to sick leave, dependent care leave, and vacation time my employer gives us 40 hours per year of “absent with permission” leave. It’s paid time off for those times you need to be away from work that don’t really fit in the sick leave or vacation time bucket – car trouble, flooded basement, etc. Your manager just needs to approve it. I used a half day a couple years ago to speak to middle schoolers about my job at an after school program a friend of mine was running.

    1. OtterB*

      This is included for us in a sick/personal bucket, separate from vacation. This category can be used for your own illness, care for a family/household member, or “anything that makes your life easier.” I have used it for attending school conferences when my kids were still in school, renewing driver’s license, and things like plumbing/HVAC emergencies (although limited amount of time needed for that, due to ability to work from home while waiting on service person).

    2. SQL Coder Cat*

      I was coming here to say something similar- especially if you have a system that disincentives same day time off in any way, you need to have at least a few days a year where employees can take off at the last minute without penalty. My work gives us three days a year- no approvals needed. Those days would have made such a difference to me earlier in my career when I was in hourly positions that tracked attendance and penalized you if you used too much sick time.

    3. Madtown Maven*

      My employer offers just plain PTO — a single-bucket system to be used for any and all paid time away from work. It starts at a rate of 4 weeks per year, and goes up to 6 weeks per year (we also have 11 paid holidays). I really like how there’s no need to clarify the reason for needing the time off. We’re also allowed to carry over up to 80 hours of PTO into the next year.

    4. anonymous here*

      NC State university. Some of these are specific to higher ed but you can extrapolate to your situation.

      We recently got a personal observance day of additional PTO — can be religious but doesn’t have to be; I will use part of mine on Election Day.

      We already get PTO for volunteering, and just got a day of PTO if we COVID boosted.

      Hybrid and flexible and remote have all been approved at the University level, subject to supervisor and division/college approval. The approval , and it can be yanked back — I understand different jobs have different needs, and situations can change, but it would be a stronger reg if supervisor/dean/division head had the onus proving why it couldn’t be granted when requested. Especially when we have actual data demonstrating remote is highly effective and students often prefer it for some services.

      We have tuition coverage (1 or 2 classes/term), which must be related to your position. Some supervisors will sign off on any course but many will not — ideal would be to dump that description.

      We have tuition for employees’ dependents, that one’s great!

      Our career center has a professional clothes closet for students (they can keep the clothes): if your pay is not the greatest, perhaps could offer something similar for employees who can’t afford appropriate clothing for conferences and presentations.

      We have CARES referrals for students, faculty, staff of concern. Anyone can make a referral (can be anonymous). CARES team includes health services, counseling center, disability services, campus police, and other professionals who meet to evaluate and follow up on cases.

      Things I wish we had:
      3/4 hours with 100% health insurance benefit

      Job sharing — two part timers sharing one job without loss of full health insurance benefits.

      Longer coverage (= more sessions) for mental health care.

      $15 minimum wage for facilities, food service, housekeeping etc staff — free health insurance for employees who make at or below full time at $15/hour. Subsidized commuting for same.

      Expand TRIO services and similar programs for students.

      Require opportunity-type programs to proactively offer, find, assist with applications etc, and provide real/sufficient financial and academic resources to BIPOC and under-resourced students (instead of, you know, saying we just can’t find any Black or Latinx students). Programs like university honors, undergraduate research, fellowships, study abroad…

      Little things: faculty and staff pay student price for arts and sports tickets. Free parking permits for faculty and staff. Stop charging us PTO on days when the university is closed over the winter holiday.

      And the number one wish I could go back in time and they’d get it right request: when there’s a deadly pandemic starting and the university suspends classes and non medical services for X days while TPTB figure out what to do, don’t force staff to come to work, and don’t insist they must see students and parents in person despite suspension of services. = Treat your employees with actual consideration for their health and their very lives, don’t just offer lip service. (Not one of us who were there that day will ever forget it. Ever. )

  28. OyHiOh*

    If a specific PTO bucket for non Christian holidays and events is a no go, an option a previous workplace used might work instead (depending on the type of work you do, etc). At that workplace, we could swap any holiday on our approved list for a day of our choice (for example, I would work Veterans Day and President’s day (we followed the US federal list so normally everyone was off) and use those days to take off for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

    1. Sylvan*

      I’d love this! No religious holidays for me, just like working on Christmas and taking some other days off.

    2. Donna Noble*

      I worked at a 24/7 emergency management agency. You got however many paid holidays a year and if you had to work on the holiday, you could schedule your holiday anytime in the next year (before the next iteration of the same holiday). Same for birthday but had to be within a week or two if I remember.

    3. Madtown Maven*

      Our company is moving to a system of having 11 floating holidays, to be used as each employee desires. This change has been about 10 years in the making, and it’s so obviously simple to understand now that many of us are wondering why it took so long. But it really did take lots of time for people–including leadership and general staff–to get their minds around it.

  29. Marie*

    One thing my company did, which I think is neat, is partner with a company called Fringe (Search “Fringe Marketplace”, it’s the link that ends in .us). Every pay period employees get points to spend at the Fringe Marketplace, and Fringe partners with all sorts of companies where you can spend your points- everything from Uber discounts to Cruise discounts, Milkbar bakery, Online fitness apps, parenting support, etc. You can also choose to convert your points to an HSA contribution.

    Before, our company just matched our HSA contribution up to a specific dollar amount, but now they have converted that dollar amount match to Fringe Marketplace points, so there is a lot more flexibility in how I can spend those points. My company frames it as saying that “Wellness” means different things to different people at different times, so they wanted to maximize flexibility.

    1. T. Boone Pickens*

      As someone who uses their HSA as an additional retirement vehicle this would irk me quite a bit. That being said, if you’re giving each employee the choice of a HSA match or Fringe points, then great!

    2. xtinerat*

      My company has a slightly different version of this called Bonusly, as a rewards system. Everyone gets a set monthly “budget” of points to give away to coworkers as thanks for assistance, collaboration, etc. Points you receive can be redeemed for things like gift cards and charitable donations.

  30. a tester, not a developer*

    I’m partial to a wellness account that covers a lot of different things; mine not only does ‘traditional’ health stuff like gym memberships and running shoes. Want to take a cooking class? Sure – it’s good for your mental health! Need to cover fees for your kid’s t-ball? Yep – the account covers anyone living at your address.

    1. Willow Sunstar*

      This would be good plus those who want to use weight loss services, most diets have a fee associated with them. That was one of the reasons I have stopped doing WW. It’s too expensive with inflation and other things I need to pay for. Health insurance companies keep saying they want us to be thin, yet most don’t really pay for diet services, and often won’t cover weight loss medications if you are actually trying to eat right, and don’t have diabetes or heart disease as a complication. They tend to just reward already thin people and penalize people who aren’t.

      1. a tester, not a developer*

        Yeah, in the before times the company used to have WW sessions in the auditorium at a significant discount. And you can use our benefits for a registered dietician if that’s more your style.

      2. raktajino*

        my insurance covers a very specific, group-based diet plan (that is shady imo) and no nutritionist or dietician support. Real helpful, thanks.

  31. Venus*

    Our workplace has bereavement leave for ‘one person who is like family’. We have generous leave of 5 days, so they can’t offer the leave in an unlimited way, yet having this as a one-time benefit feels thoughtful and kind. A month after the change was announced, my coworker used it for an extended family member with whom he was very close and I know he really appreciated it.

    1. mli25*

      I would love this. I am closer to members of my husband’s family than my own, so being to take bereavement leave for them with no questions asked would be lovely.

      Also, keep in mind that death and services don’t necessarily happen all at once. Military funerals take months to happen after the death, so ensure that there is enough leave to cover both the immediate and future needs related to the same death.

  32. Less Bread More Taxes*

    I would add sterilization procedures and other types of birth control to what your insurance covers. My current job does an amazing job of covering people who want kids – e.g., surrogacy and IVF are covered in full. But people who want hysterectomies or vasectomies have to pay essentially 100% out of pocket. It doesn’t seem fair.

    1. Gan Ainm*

      If agree with this, especially because OP said gender dysphoria coverage is going to be provided – so if you’re going to cover a hysterectomy for some women you better cover it for all, etc etc.

      1. DataSci*

        I understand what you’re trying to say, but hysterectomies as gender-affirming treatments would be for (AFAB) men, not for women.

        1. Tracy Flick*

          Well, not only AFAB men, because you can be non-binary (and in that instance, even identify on some level as a woman, or as not-not-a-woman) and still seek a hysterectomy as part of gender-affirming medical treatment.

          That’s a pretty common scenario these days, actually – we don’t have data but non-binary trans people are at minimum a plurality, and they’re not less likely to seek transition-related medical care.

          Birth assignment also isn’t the same as physiology; “AFAB” is not the same as “all those who have a uterus.”

          So if you want to be inclusive, you can just say, “If you’re going to cover a hysterectomy for some employees you better cover it for all.”

          Also, I’ve found that it’s easier to avoid cissexist phrasing – which is based on generalizations about gender – if you focus on the category you want to reference rather than something that generally includes or equates to that category. No easy solutions to bias that is baked in, but IME it helps.

    2. mli25*

      This would have been amazing to have when I got my IUD and then my hysterectomy. It would also be nice to have some leave category (family planning? I am terrible with naming things) that I could have used for the recovery, since it was surgery (hysterotomy).

      Maybe a general medical procedure recovery bucket of time? Might get sticky, but if no revealing details are needed, it would be a nice additional bucket of leave to access.

  33. Ihmmy*

    minor, but recommend updating language in to “gender affirming care” instead of specifying it has to be related to dysphoria

    2. marvin*

      I came here to mention that I’m honestly not sure what gender dysphoria benefits actually mean. If the company is willing to cover things like surgical procedures, hair removal, and hormone prescriptions, and provide generous paid medical leave, it would be really helpful to be explicit about that. A lot of gender affirming health care is quite expensive (and trans people tend to make less money than cis people) so these programs could make a huge difference.

      1. Lily Rowan*

        My job just sent out a benefits update that explicitly said hair removal and transplantation is now part of gender-affirming coverage, which I thought was great.

      2. genderqueer reader*

        To add to this: even in states where insurance coverage of gender-affirming care is mandated, gender-affirming surgeries are not fully covered, EVEN IF the insurance claims it is. This is because insurance usually covers “medically necessary” procedures but not “cosmetic” procedures, and gender-affirming surgeries are considered both. The insurance will pay for the part of the procedure they consider “medically necessary” but not the part considered “cosmetic.” Having a benefits package that actually, truly covered 100% of these procedures would be truly life-changing for many people.

        1. Middle Name Danger*

          My insurance covered two of the three separately billed parts of my top surgery. They wouldn’t cover the part that included liposuction because it was “cosmetic” even though it was a necessary and non-optional part of surgery.

    3. teapot QA*

      LW should really dig into the benefits for trans healthcare. Is FFS covered? Dermal fillers? Certain surgeries but not others (many people don’t know there’s like 10 different types of bottom surgery)?Is there a lifetime limit to coverage? Transition related healthcare (before insurance, if you have insurance) can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime, depending on the individual person’s transition goals, so a lifetime cap of $10K or $20K, while common, isn’t going to scream “we want to hire and retain trans people.” I know it’s a complex topic but it’s definitely worth learning about since your company is clearly making an effort to offer benefits that benefit everyone!

  34. Web Crawler*

    If you don’t already, please expand your insurance coverage to let people cover domestic partners. This is the main benefit I’m looking for in my next job, because I’m not married to my partner for personal reasons.

  35. SIM Card Erased*

    Benefit Broker here:
    *Pet insurance is WILDLY popular with some employers even picking up part of the premium
    *Student loan financing/refinacing
    *Fringe-you give employees dollars that turn into points that allow for things like subscription services, wellness events, massages, gym memberships, travel, and can even go towards paying down student loans
    *Birthday time off outside of PTO
    *4 Cultural holidays per year outside of the standard ones (Christmas, Thanksgiving, LAbor Day, Memorial Day etc)
    *Election Day off so everyone can vote

    1. SIM Card Erased*

      Also- Care dot com is moving into the corporate market and is providing services to help people arrange back up child and adult care.

    2. Paris Geller*

      Oh, I would love pet insurance as a benefit! That’s a good one I’ve never thought of before.

    4. JustKnope*

      We get 4 hours of PTO a year specific to voting – it’s nice because we’re all spread out over the US so it can account for things like different primary days or local elections.

    5. Ashley*

      Election Day is huge. I know a place that gives you a few hours for voting but will give you the day if you work the election.

      1. ferrina*

        Nice! I worked at a place with unlimited PTO, and in the weeks leading up to election day, I made a point to tell my team to flex their time as much as needed so they could vote/volunteer/whatever they were doing to support democracy.

        1. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

          In many states, shift workers (like = 7 to 7 or 8 to 8) have to be given time off to vote. But if you work 9 to 5, and the voting booth is open 7 am to 8 pm, you’ve got sufficient time to go to vote.

    6. HigherEdAdmin*

      Would love all of these. I wish that those of us without families could use some of those funds for pet insurance premiums.

    7. JessicaTate*

      To your last point, my company offers Voting Leave. So, if you need to vote in-person — in ANY election, general, primary, special, even-year, odd-year — the time you need to do that is additional paid time off (not vacation, sick, or holiday). If it’s a quick half-hour, great. If you live in one of those precincts where they have reduced access so that you’re forced to stand in line for 8 hours to vote, in an effort to disenfranchise you, the company wants you to stand in that line and exercise your rights and not worry about losing pay or PTO.

      There’s also Poll Worker Leave. If you are a poll worker, you can talk with your manager in advance, and they will make every effort to accommodate you having that day off (again, paid, not coming out of an existing pool of days) to do that civic duty. I suspect if you were going to be volunteering for any other voting access work — giving rides to people, etc. — they’d accommodate that too. The principle behind it is encouraging civic participation.

      I’ve worked at a place that gave everyone (general) Election Day off as one of their (limited) paid holidays. I liked that less because: A) it doesn’t address voting in primaries, and frankly, B) no one I knew used it to be a poll worker or other election related work. If you didn’t need the whole day to vote, it was just a random holiday. In this company, it’s deployed to support/encourage the exercising of one’s civic duty specifically, and is separate from your pool of holiday days.

      1. WillowSunstar*

        The company I work for requires we use PTO in 4 or 8 hour blocks. So we’d have to use 4 hours minimum to vote. Luckily, I live in a state that allows early voting.

  36. GigglyPuff*

    I don’t know how much leeway private employers have but how good is your medical coverage for prescription drugs and premiums? I know different case but my state government has negotiated completely covered insulin costs for the last couple years and our premiums are super cheap. Pretty much the #1 reason I stay at my job, any increase in salary offers at a new job is erased in more expensive medical coverage.

    Also add fosters to parental leave policies.

  38. Mehitabel*

    I’m just going to suggest re-thinking the bereavement leave. If someone loses a spouse, child or parent, coming back to work after three days is asking a whole lot of them. My organization’s bereavement leave policy is 2 weeks for an immediate family member, 1 week for an extended family member, and 3 days for pets. And we don’t police who is immediate or extended family — our employees define that for themselves.

    I also believe that employers should cover not just their employees but also dependents for medical insurance. People should not have to pay hundreds of dollars every month for their kids to be covered.

    1. WomEngineer*

      That’s a great bereavement policy. It’s so comforting to not have to go back to “normal” right away.

    2. Jj*

      thank you so much for not defining immediate family for people. I have no legal or romantic relationship to the loved one I have lived with for over a decade. He is older than me though and likely to die first, and I dread the thought that when the time comes, or even if he is sick and in need of care taking, I might have a job that doesn’t honor our relationship in it’s leave policies. Not all of us are blessed with spouses or family of origin and it is such a relief to see more companies recognize this!

  39. sb51*

    Check that all your external vendors are set up with inclusive language and options—it’s great that you offer [benefit X] to staff and partners but make sure the outside vendor doesn’t require a binary gender field somewhere buried in the forms, etc.

    If you offer gym/other health benefits, make sure there’s no fatphobic or other judgemental language—our work gym is awesome but they send out a lot of “want to lose the holiday weight? Come to our new spin class” type emails and just “come to our new spin class it’s fun” would be fine.

    Have human-authored captioning available on training and widely-circulated materials. Plus anything else that would help make it a welcoming environment for neurodiverse employees (captioning is the one that would personally help me but there’s many more.)

    1. allathian*

      Seconding captioning. I’m NT, but I have some auditory processing issues, and the captions on our training videos really help, even if, given the choice, I’d far rather just read the script/pptx with notes and skip the video entirely. Videos are a waste of time as far as I’m concerned, I read at least 3 times as fast as people speak, and I also retain things I read much better than those I hear. Because of the processing issues, I can’t even speed up the video to waste less time, the smurfy voices on speeded-up video grate on my ears.

      I do hope that gyms start eliminating their fatphobic advertising, it would encourage more people to go who’d really benefit. At the very least, companies that want to be inclusive should include fatphobia as something they’re actively working against. Given that nearly 75 percent of adults in the US are overweight to some degree, there’s certainly a market for “healthy at any weight” messaging.

  40. WomEngineer*

    Seconding what others have said about PTO for volunteering activities, childcare, and a few days for “personal holidays.”

    PTO/funding for DEI-related conferences would be cool too. Great employee development and it shows others outside the company what you value.

  41. I should really pick a name*

    I’m curious what gender dysphoria coverage actually covers as it sounds kind of vague to me.
    I’d assume counselling, and medical transition costs.

    1. Sylvan*

      +1

      That’s also what it sounds like to me, which sounds good. But if you have an employee who’s transgender, they’re going to need to know exactly what is available to them and whether it’s affordable.

      1. Robin*

        On that note, in my experience it’s fairly arbitrary what insurance considers essential vs cosmetic in terms of trans healthcare. For example, my insurance company considered hair removal cosmetic and were completely stringent on that point even for body hair when it was a medical necessity before (covered) surgery. It probably depends on the insurance company, but you should push them to include “cosmetic” procedures when possible and at least make sure they’re clear about what they consider cosmetic

        1. Sonny*

          of course when a cis person needs hormones or surgeries to better align with expectations of their gender, insurance companies have no problem covering that!

  42. UK benefits*

    I’m in the UK, so the thing that jumps out to me (and maybe this is already covered) is making sure your PTO allowance is actually generous. In the UK every full-time worker has to get a minimum of 28 days paid leave a year (and everywhere that I’ve worked that’s non-customer facing gets 28 days plus bank holidays as a minimum). So I would say start with that as your baseline, and then add a day per year of service.

    I’m always astounded when I read this site at how poor holiday entitlement is in the US.

    Other things off the top of my head:
    – Paid maternity and paternity leave (and adoption leave)
    – Some kind of childcare benefit that can apply to any child living in your home
    – A strong flexible working policy that kicks in at day one – which includes options for all kinds of flexible working (WFH, hybrid, compressed hours, part time, job-share)
    – If you’re an in-person company (even hybrid), any kind of subsidised or free meals always goes down well, especially at the moment with CoL pressures.

  43. Sylvan*

    I’m just going to throw some questions at you! These are all about everyday practicalities.

    How physically accessible is your workplace? That is:

    – Are tables at wheelchair level?

    – Are meeting and conference spaces wheelchair-accessible?

    – Can doors be opened by someone who can’t grab and turn a knob?

    – If you have a wheelchair ramp, where is it and has someone who uses a wheelchair tested it? I’ve seen some ramps that could be used by a person in a wheelchair if someone assisted them, but the ramps were too steeply pitched for someone to wheel down alone without launching themselves like a pine box derby car.

    – Can people with mobility impairments evacuate the building easily in a fire drill? (Big learning experiences for me: The time we had a fire drill while my coworker was nine months pregnant. The time we had a real evacuation after my bad leg became the bad leg.)

    1. Sylvan*

      Oh crap, I somehow read “make our (company/workplace) more inclusive” rather than “make our benefits more inclusive.” Sorry!

      When it comes to benefits, I’d look at how sick days interact with other PTO. Can someone who takes sick days still take a regular day off for a vacation? Can someone take part but not all of a day off? Also, what’s your WFH policy like?

    2. Dino*

      Jumping off this: look into a separate insurance rider for hearing aid/cochlear implants coverage! Hearing aids are expensive and most insurance doesn’t cover it. I know several deaf/hard of hearing people who have skills and education and WANT to work, but can’t afford the hearing aids that would allow them to work successfully.

      2. Janine*

        Yes, absolutely. And not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because colleagues and clients/customers will also benefit. When I finally got a hearing aid after waiting way too long (for cost reasons), my colleagues were more relieved than anyone else other than my immediate family.

        Also, construe “family” broadly whenever you can, or even think about whether you need to use it as a criteria. I worked at a location where venue tickets were a very nice perk, but for whatever reasons HR provided them through a “family membership” which specifically defined family as people living at the same address. But I wanted to bring my extended family members. It probably would have been fine, but as a member of management I wasn’t about to put a front-line staffer in the position of having to make a call. Now they just tell us we get X tickets for a given event etc and we decide who gets them.

    3. Wants Green Things*

      These are still very important questions to ask! Particularly evacuating the building in an emergency. The whole “do not use elevator in case of emergency” automatically screws over anyone mobility impaired, especially if they’re in a wheelchair! Companies need to have a plan in place to get anyone with mobility issues downstairs, whether that’s through use of a service elevator or the main.

      Dirty lens: my middle school was 2 stories. There were elevators, but only for kids with broken legs or permanent wheelchairs – needed a special key and everything. Except! That key *wouldn’t work* during a fire drill!! Which meant that there were *routinely* kids left *upstairs* during evacuations without even a teacher staying with them!!! I think a parent did sue over this some point after I left, but it just changed to “and now a teacher will wait with the kids” instead of “get the kids downstairs.”

      1. Ginger Baker*

        I thought about this yesterday during our fire drill and cried (because it made me think of my mom – who just died – and until recently was still working so pre-pandemic was in an office 3 days a week but definitely could *not* have walked down even two flights for an evacuation, so basically she would be…just left to die I guess? [they did say to have one person wait with the person and the other alert the fire dept but well…it wasn’t heartening]).

    1. Sara H*

      Yes it shocked me this wasn’t even considered. Though my huge company just did a benefits survey and also missed asking about anything childcare/parenting related. Interesting given the child care crisis, and the political landscape in our country that companies aren’t even seeing this as something they need to think about? I wonder why it’s so overlooked?

  45. Higher Ed admin*

    I would love to see more companies specifically call out “mental health days” as an allowable use of sick time. So many dance around or say “mental or physical illness” for allowable uses, but I think saying you have to have a “mental illness” or incident to take a mental health day seems like a bridge too far. Much in the same way that a physical illness, like a common cold, would make my work suffer for the day and warrant using sick time, the same goes for brain fog or anything else that would impact my focus and not make me produce my best work. And I’m not a fan of making people use regular vacation/PTO for mental health days either.

      1. WillowSunstar*

        But then you might get “judged” for admitting you have mental health issues at all. There is still way too much stigma around it. I would not feel safe admitting something like that where I work.

        1. xtinerat*

          Agreed! I think a better solution might be to make it clear that mental health issues are a valid use of a sick day *and* to believe people when they say they’re sick (rather than requiring them to disclose their sickness or provide doctor’s notes).

    2. The Real Fran Fine*

      My company just announced that this week, lol. I’ve always taken a sick day as mental health leave when needed, so this announcement didn’t really make much a difference for me, but it was nice to see our HR team acknowledge that sometimes you just can’t, and when that happens, it’s perfectly acceptable to use a sick day to rest and recover.

  46. Jujyfruits*

    Why not just unlimited time off with a minimum vacation requirement? Some people might need more than 1 day to grieve their pet. Some people might take a sick day to help a relative they’re not close to. Employees are adults. Let them take what they need without having to say why.

    1. Rapunzel*

      a couple of people have mentioned this, but unlimited time off is often not a good deal. even with a minimum requirement (which is a good idea), people might feel expected to take less vacation time and not feel empowered to take more. additionally, it means that the employer doesn’t need to pay out extra vacation time when the employee leaves the company, so the employees ultimately miss out on pay due to the unlimited pto. I think that generous PTO policies are better than unlimited.

      1. ferrina*

        I really like unlimited PTO, but it’s also totally dependent on the company culture. It’s a whole mind shift from butts-in-seats productivity to measurable and defined metrics for each role/individual.

      2. Jujyfruits*

        I had unlimited PTO at my last job and as someone with depression and other health issues, it was so helpful to just take time as needed. I didn’t care that I didn’t get a PTO payout when I left because I got what I needed while I was there.

    2. parental leave*

      I like this a lot. I worked at a company that gave us a set amount of vacation days and then unlimited “personal days” which could be used for sick time, mental health days, Yom Kippur or similar, bereavement, etc. I got sick very early in my job and took 3 weeks off paid, no questions asked, without cutting into my vacation days!

      1. allathian*

        Yes, this. In addition to a generous vacation allotment, we have basically unlimited sick leave (3 months paid by employer, the rest by our social services, but at 60% salary). If you have your long vacation scheduled, and get sick just before that, you have the right to postpone your vacation. The idea is to be sick on company time rather than your own. But if you get sick in the middle of your vacation, you’re sick during your vacation. Before my dad retired on disability, he had two 6-month sick leave periods in a row.

  47. Nynaeve*

    Don’t police how people use their sick leave. IMO “sick leave” should actually be “a smaller bucket of PTO that people can use with no notice” while regular PTO/Vacation should actually be “a large bucket of time that should only be used when notice is given and approval to take the time granted.”

    And, don’t make people use one to cover the other when they do have an unexpected absence. If they need to take the day and don’t have enough sick time to cover it, and also don’t mind taking the time without pay, allow that. Don’t make them use up their PTO taking sick days if they don’t want to. If you can’t allow that for whatever reason, just make it all one bucket.

    Don’t make people tell you why they are taking a day off without notice so that you can determine whether they are allowed to use their time.

    Also, grant all forms of PTO in buckets, not via accrual.

    1. Ann Ominous*

      “ Also, grant all forms of PTO in buckets, not via accrual”

      I’ve read letters from frustrated employees who leave the company earlier, and have to pay back the PTO they’ve taken…how would this policy fit in that?

      1. Lusara*

        My company does buckets and it works fine. They don’t make anyone pay it back when they leave if they’ve taken more than the prorated amount at that point.

      2. Lab Boss*

        I understand the frustration there, but if they’d worked for a company that did accrual they would have either had to a) not take that time off at all, or b) take it as unpaid time off. Getting your PTO in a bucket give you way more flexibility not get stuck with option a, and if you leave the company and have to pay back some of it you really just got option b with extra steps.

  48. different seudonym*

    Take a really hard look at mental-health benefts. are they as generous and flexible as they could be? for example, are online sessions included, what’s the cap on sessions, etc. and remember, if you’ere not hearing demand for mental-health care, that can be due to shame, lack of familiarity, or both.

    1. marvin*

      Yes, actually useful therapy benefits would be incredible. Even the most generous health coverage I’ve had only covers a tiny fraction of my therapy expenses. The expectation seems to be that you’ll go to four or six sessions and be done, but that’s definitely not how it works for me, and as a result therapy is my second highest monthly expense after rent.

      1. MarfisaTheLibrarian*

        Is that legal anymore in the US? I know obamacare got semi-gutted, but I thought one of the elements was parity of care between mental and physical healthcare.
        (I’m not disbelieving you, I’m just very curious how that happens!)

  50. just my two cents*

    I would add abortion care as a medical benefit. As well as unlimited PTO, if that’s feasible. And I saw some folks mention a childcare benefit, and that would be a gamechanger for a lot of people. And a wellness stipend!! We’re getting one at my job, and I will be able to afford a gym for the first time in years, and I know it will benefit my work.

    2. Tracy Flick*

      Also – if you’re offering funding for out of state travel to access abortion, INCLUDE FAMILY MEMBERS. Employees should be able to access that lifeline if their partners/kids need abortions.

    3. CNA*

      Yes, and look carefully at how coverage is worded. Some health plans have clauses like ‘when medically necessary’ or ‘pre-approval needed.’ Abortion should be covered with no restrictions or stipulations and include travel.

  51. High Score!*

    32 hour work weeks. Let people have a work life balance. With all the technological advances we’ve made, having tech assist is too get more done, why still 40 hours or more?

  52. Me ... Just Me*

    Robust short and long term sick leave pay! FMLA only protects your position when you’re out sick, it doesn’t mean you actually get paid for that time. Those who are disabled/have health concerns often have to give up having a vacation because they end up using PDO for days sick/appoinments.

  53. The office "crazy" dog lady*

    I have nothing really to add that isn’t already there or has been suggested by the comments, but I just wanted to say thank you for including pets in your sick leave.

    My current employer is the first place I’ve work at that does this, and being able to pull from my sick time to take my dogs to the vet rather than my PTO has been a huge game changer. My employer is generous with PTO accrual, but I have almost twice as much sick time accrued as I do PTO that I almost never use otherwise.

  54. Rapunzel*

    make sure that gender-affirming healthcare is covered in medical insurance policies

    look into FMLA/disability policies – reduce waiting periods before being able to take short term disability, etc.

    not a benefit, but making sure that there are accessible gender neutral bathrooms, and good nursing rooms

    making sure that abortion care is covered

    also not a benefit, but focusing on a culture of reasonable work expectations so that people without stay-at-home partners can reasonably work at the company

  55. That one over there*

    PAID PARENTAL LEAVE! Even time off for the person who doesn’t birth the child would be great. Or parental leave after a adoption or foster placement.

  56. Golden*

    Maximum flexibility in what you can use benefits for. This might be hard because I think it’s somehow tied into government COVID relief, but my company recently rolled out a tuition reimbursement program. I don’t need this, but that money would be so beneficial for me to take as a childcare stipend instead.

    If there’s any way you can allow people to exchange one benefit for another, that would go a long way in covering all types of needs.

    1. General von Klinkerhoffen*

      My spouse has a benefits menu, and once a year he has to lock in what he wants – some affect your taxes so they can’t be swapped in and out flexibly.

      So maybe one employee wants to buy enhanced medical insurance for his spouse, and an interest free loan for a bicycle (this is a major thing in UK cities), and sell his two unused vacation days. And another employee wants tax-free childcare and a car lease and four extra vacation days. And someone else doesn’t want any of that, and will take the extra cash, thanks.

      It’s administered by an external provider but is very popular.

      1. Golden*

        Yes, exactly what I’m talking about! I hadn’t heard of this, but it sounds like the best of all worlds.

  57. Elizabeth*

    You might want to change the name of Gender Dysphoria to Gender Confirmation. There’s a segment of the patient population who aren’t dysphoric, but they do have congenital conditions that don’t allow them to present as their desired gender. They seek care from the same providers as those who experience dysphoria.

    Make sure your medical coverage includes provisions for long term treatment for limb replacement devices. A one & done approach to prosthetics is common, but it doesn’t work for anyone who experiences changes in height and weight. Kids are most commonly impacted, but adults who gain or lose weight find themselves in the same situation, needing to adjust their prosthetics or purchase new ones, but they are prohibitively expensive.

    Dental coverage needs to include treatment beyond basic cleaning and fillings. If the coverage can be extended to pay a percentage of all treatments, not just up to a very low annual limit, even better. And even the coverage for basic care should be for the number of cleanings that the provider deems appropriate, not limited to two per year.

    If you offer a high deductible plan with an HSA, offer a lump sum amount to be deposited in the HSA for each covered life.

    1. OyHiOh*

      My org matches HSA contributions up to 4% of salary. It’s not quite as generous as lump sum, but it makes a big difference.

  58. Tracy Flick*

    If you’re expanding health benefits to cover transition-related care, it would be a good idea to:

    – evaluate your plans’ provider networks to make sure that they are extensive

    – make sure that their provider networks include sufficient mental-health care providers who are accepting new patients

    – make sure that provider networks are nationwide

    – less of a problem these days, but: PPOs offer far more flexibility when trying to vet/switch providers, and this can be a big deal if you’re a member of a marginalized group seeking care

    – offer additional PTO for traveling long distances to medical appointments, since many trans people must travel out of state to find providers and usually must schedule several pre-surgery visits

    – (this would be really nice) offer to pay for some of the cost of a hotel stay – see above

    – offer enough PTO to allow an employee to take a few weeks off to recover from surgery without taking time unpaid

    – provide coverage for electro/laser hair removal. Many people aren’t aware, but hair removal is *really* expensive – for some people, it exceeds the cost of their surgeries. It can be a very important part of transition, but most health insurance plans don’t cover it because it’s considered ‘cosmetic.’ It’s also sometimes required for some transition-related surgeries.

    1. Sonny*

      Really good points! Some people have to travel to get certain procedures and it can be very expensive.

  59. Nikki*

    You may already be doing this, but make sure that fertility benefits are freely available (not just in specific instances of “proven” infertility).

    Folks with certain medical conditions, like genetic disorders or cancer, may wish to have fertility services even if they aren’t technically infertile. In the case of genetic disorders, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and then embryo implantation allows people to avoid passing on their disorder to their child. In the case of cancer and other illnesses that impact fertility, people may wish to generate and freeze embryos prior to treatment.

    1. LawLady*

      In addition to the health concerns you mention, non heterosexual couple generally need fertility benefits. Many companies or insurance policies require people to try to conceive for a year before fertility benefits kick in. A lesbian friend of mine ran into this at her company. She was like… “I don’t think a year of trying to get pregnant on our own is going to get us anywhere…”

      1. Pocket Mouse*

        FYI, New York recently directed insurers to cover fertility services for non-hetero couples without requiring a certain number of attempts first! This is an equity issue because non-hetero couples would need to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for their attempts, whereas hetero couples would not. The directive does not ensure fertility clinics know of the change to include social infertility, however, so they may not even try to bill for services that are now guaranteed to be covered.

        If insurance is not required to cover it, perhaps include reimbursement for these inequitably non-covered services as a benefit.

      3. LegalEagle*

        Yes, fertility benefits should be written in a way that gives non-heterosexual couples and single people the option to start IVF immediately, as opposed to requiring six or twelve rounds of intrauterine inseminations (as some places do). That coverage is mandated in certain states, but if you live in a state where it isn’t mandated, that’s a good way to ensure your fertility benefits are inclusive.

  60. Velawciraptor*

    Make sure that the adoption benefit you’re expanding to include surrogacy and any paid parental leave also considers the needs of foster parents.

    The comments above about religious holidays are also important.

  61. Caryn*

    +1,000 for fertility and adoption benefits (I know you have them, just saying this would be #1 on my list!) And a general suggestion to think about disability in your benefits/perks that you offer — in terms of medical benefits, but also the ability to work from home or flexible hours (40+ hours a week of sitting in a wheelchair is not comfortable for lots of people, and I know others with disabilities have benefited from the WFH movement as well).

    My husband uses a wheelchair and I know we will need at least some assistance up to IVF, surrogacy, or adoption when we do have kids. It’s enough to consider changing jobs to a place that offers fertility benefits (my current employer offers none at all). One cool thing which is probably unrealistic, but, for a company that didn’t offer fertility benefits, offering paid leave to go to a fertility clinic internationally (so much less expensive) would be a way to compensate for that.

  62. Anothergloriusmorning*

    Covering IVF or infertility treatments. This can help so many people. No only a person trying to get pregnant, but members of the LGBTQ community trying to start a family.

    1. Anonymous Koala*

      This, and I know you said you’re expanding fertility benefits, but I’d consider making sure IVF is explicitly included in your health coverage options, as many insurances offer fertility benefits that do not extend to ART.

      I’d also consider expanding flexible schedules and trying to create policies that explicitly encourage/allow alternative work arrangements when possible, like WFH, 4/10 weeks, etc. Flexibility helps everyone and making sure your office encourages it will go a long way towards inclusivity.

  63. let me be dark and twisty*

    Also consider accessibility. Make certain accessibility standards default, like always have captions or transcripts on video calls even if no one requests them. Include screen-readers as part of the core software package you give to employees on their laptops.

    From a benefits perspective — things like liberal leave/absence, liberal flexibility, or the “one pot” approach (where there’s one category of leave with all of your time instead of Vacation Time with 60% of your leave benefits, Sick Time with 25% of your leave benefits, and PTO with 15% of your leave benefits) would help employees with disabilities or medical issues tremendously. For instance a deaf person whose hearing aids are malfunctioning, can’t hear, and don’t have the spatial awareness to get to work – they’re not sick, but it’s also not necessarily PTO because they physically cannot work. Or an amputee whose prosthetic has been damaged and can’t come into the office should be allowed to work from home ad hoc without any kind of coordination in advance. Or someone with a Crohn’s flareup who can’t handle the commute but is still able to work should be able to work from home without prior coordination.

  64. GyreFalcon*

    Others have said that 3 days seems short for bereavement leave, and I just wanted to add that in addition to general grief as well as logistics, some religions require more time after a close family death. Jews for example need to sit shiva for 7 days, so would need at least 5 work days off after a death in the immediate family.

  65. Judge Judy and Executioner*

    I just complained to my company that our health screening forms only allowed for male or female. Many health care policies are discriminatory towards intersex, non-binary, and transgender people. I suggest the following!

    1. When it comes to insurance coverage, work with your vendors to ensure there is not just a male/female binary on forms. In addition to those who are transgender or experience gender dysphoria, approximately 1% of the population is born intersex with parts that are not traditionally male or female. Allowing for a third option of “other” or a fourth of “transgender” would be ideal.
    2. Healthcare coverage should include gender reassignment surgeries

    1. iantrovert*

      Re: first point, generally “transgender” isn’t a fourth option because a person can be a trans man, trans woman, trans nonbinary person, cis man, or cis woman (broad categories, not getting into the nitty-gritty of nonbinary genders here). It’s more like “do you identify with the gender assigned to you at birth? y/n” where effectively yes = cisgender and no = transgender, but also effectively “no” means “don’t automatically deny claims that do not appear to match the on-paper or legal sex of this person, because they may have anatomy that is atypical of that sex.”

  66. She of Many Hats*

    I would also make sure that any health insurance offered has quality and broad reproductive health care coverage and look into the company offering something additional for those employees who live in restrictive or draconian reproduction health states.

  67. PDB*

    I used to be in the record business-you remember them, those flat black things that music came out of-and the entire business, not just some company, shut down between Christmas and New Year PAID.

  68. sadnotbad*

    this is AMAZING! Two thoughts on medical coverage:

    + offer plans where mental health care is covered on par with physical health care

    + this is very niche, but if you want to support trans employees to the max, try to identify a health plan where they *don’t* have to get a diagnosis of gender dysphoria in order to get gender-affirming care (sometimes the plan states this, sometimes the provider, but at least you can try to remove the plan requirement).

    1. Web Crawler*

      Seconding the health plan where you don’t need to get a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. That was one of the most difficult hoops I had to jump through as a trans person, and I’m white, identified as a binary trans man, and had a reasonable amount of access to mental health professionals.

      If you’ve never had to do it before, I can explain. In order to get a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, I needed to find a therapist who knew about trans issues, that I could afford, and who had availability when I did. It turns out that most therapists who list LGBT expertise actually just have LGB expertise. Then I found a therapist who said she would diagnose me, but not until I read the entire WPATH standards of care (a dense 120 page document) in a series of sessions with her, line by line, to prove that I understood what I was getting into. I gave up and found a doctor who’d give me T with an informed consent model.

      I’m 5 years into my second puberty and very comfortable in my body now, but I’ve still never been diagnosed. My doctor has me listed as having an “endocrine disorder”. I asked, and she said “your body can’t produce testosterone to the level that you need, sounds like a disorder to me”.

  69. Paris Geller*

    If you’re working in a physical location, can you also add a commuting benefit? Something like a stipend of $100 or $150 a month for commuting cost, whether that be public transportation or gas? Not something I’ve ever actual benefited from but I have heard some companies that do that.

    1. OyHiOh*

      Yes! My org offers paid parking, which is fairly cheap in our city (about $70 – 100/mo for most of the lots downtown) but would be a significant out of pocket cost if we had to cover it for ourselves.

    2. Turtles All the Way Down*

      There’s actually a federal pre-tax benefit, but covered would be even better, especially if they are in a location where they can encourage public transit or cycling (and have shower facilities, speaking of the latter).

  70. BethRA*

    Instead of student loan relief, I would love to see companies consider a general education funding benefit that could be used for student loan debt, or for classes people wanted to take now (and not have to go into debt to take them….)

    It’s also worth getting feedback from your employees on what they find helpful, meaningful, and/or missing.

    1. Lynn*

      Yes! I think its definitely worth asking what would be the most meaningful to them. May include things readers don’t think of, or help prioritize the things they do if there is a lot of feedback focused on one area

  71. Joanna*

    I would suggest that you review the requirements that are necessary for various positions especially the requirement for a college degree and remove that requirement if you can. It basically means that people who could not afford to go to college, or joined the military instead, are restricted from certain positions in your company. Which, if you look at the demographic of people who can’t afford to go to college, and people who go into the military (often because of lack of money to pay for college) you’ll find that a college degree requirement makes it difficult to hire with diversity in mind.

    1. What BS stands for*

      This is such an important point. I work in higher ed, and I’m amazed at how common the requirement of a bachelor’s degree is even for entry level or clerical positions. It seems to be added rather mindlessly. We need to advocate harder for removing that when it’s not necessary to perform the functions of the position. I mean, especially in a college setting where one of the benefits is partial tuition reimbursement. doesn’t it make sense to hire people who want to stay long enough to complete a degree? It’s good practice both for inclusiveness and for sustainable staffing in positions that tend to have higher turnover.

  72. Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain*

    Evaluate your paid holidays. If the company wants to cap the number of paid holidays, make sure the ones you pick are as inclusive as possible and not just a convenient day off on the calendar. If you don’t already, include Indigenous People’s Day and Juneteenth.

  73. Amy M*

    Adoptive parent here! Sounds like you already have some adoption benefits, but ideas to consider…financial adoption assistance (can help cover cost of private adoption and/or helping with new placements), equitable time off (I could take unpaid FMLA leave but no paid parental leave when my daughter was born and placed with us), and include all types of placements in your policy-private adoption, foster care, and kinship care.

    1. Mac (I Wish All The Floors Were Lava)*

      Adoptee here, and I’m gonna gently push back on the idea of funneling more money into the private adoption industry. If a company is committed to inclusivity and equity, supporting birth families to stay together is where their efforts should be focused.

  74. Warrant Officer Georgiana Breakspear-Goldfinch*

    Eldercare resources/subsidy. I did really appreciate the discount on pet insurance in a previous job. Commuter and tuition assistance. Will/estate planning. Corporate membership at a few local cultural institutions.

  75. Chauncy Gardener*

    Make sure your sick policy covers domestic abuse as well. Here is an excerpt from my company’s “Sick and safe leave” policy. It states that employees can take sick time for the following reasons:
    (Alison, I hope it’s OK I posted this?)
    • The employee’s own, or the employee’s family member’s, physical or mental illness, injury or health condition, medical diagnosis, care, or treatment related to illness, injury, or condition or preventative medical or health care,
    • Absences related to circumstances in which an employee or an employee’s family member is a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault or harassment, including but not limited to:
    o Seeking medical attention to recover from a mental or physical illness, injury, or health condition caused by domestic abuse, sexual assault, or harassment;
    o Obtaining services from a victim service organization;
    o Obtaining mental health or other counseling;
    o Seeking relocation due to domestic abuse, sexual assault or harassment; or
    o Seeking legal services resulting from domestic abuse, sexual assault, or harassment
    • Absences related to a public health emergency, as identified in the Public Health Emergency Leave policy.
    o Public official orders the closure of an employee’s place of business or the school or place of care on an employee’s child and the employee needs to care for the child

  76. Jessica*

    This isn’t exactly what you asked for, but it’s very closely and necessarily related: staffing levels appropriate to the benefits you’re offering. Basically, do your best to make sure that not only can people take all this leave if they need it, but they can do so without unduly burdening their coworkers. As much as possible the business, not the nearest individual, should sustain the impact.
    For instance, I’m never going to have a kid; I want my coworkers to get parental leave, but if every time somebody on my team has a baby it means I do a second job for free for six months, by the nth one I’m going to feel pretty bitter about it. I want my chronically ill coworker to be able to take off however much sick time they need (plus some actual vacation once in a while), and I know I’m fortunate not to be in their shoes, but if helping them out means they do 75% of a job and I do 125% of a job, indefinitely, that’s not fair and not good. I’d feel like a monster if I complained about it, or about all the extra projects I’ve had to pour overtime into because Waukeen had four people in his family die this year, but it’s still making my work life unsustainable and maybe I’ll just quit and you won’t understand why. This is also the sort of thing that provokes (misdirected) resentment between employees.
    So take an honest look at how much work is not going to be getting done because people are off using all these excellent benefits, and staff up accordingly.

    1. OyHiOh*

      This is a really good point. Either have an excellent relationship with a professional services staffing agency that can bring people in quickly and basically able to hit the ground running, or staff with enough capacity in mind that you can have people out or on limited duty and not run the rest of a team/department into the ground.

    2. sometimeswhy*

      So much this. My company has GREAT benefits but until very very recently I was literally the only person who could do my job and even after years of preparing and training other people it’s still complex enough that when I’m out, my responsibilities have to be distributed across multiple people.

      I mentioned in my suggestions that a benevolent leave fund would be useful but part of the reason it comes to mind is that I donate to it a couple times a year. I literally cannot use all of my leave and still have the work done. It’s nice to have the security that if something happens I’ll still get paid but it’ll come at a different cost to the team.

    3. Caramel and Cheddar*

      And if you can’t maintain the staffing levels appropriate to the benefits, ensure that there is some sort of compensation for those taking on the additional burden of work. People might be more willing to take on those duties if you ensure that they get a temporary pay bump or other kinds of benefits in lieu (e.g. more vacation time themselves, etc.). That still won’t be enough to justify taking on the extra work for some people, but for a lot of people it will go a long way to acknowledging that you’re asking a lot of them.

    5. kristinyc*

      +1 to this.

      At my last job, we had a year where half the marketing team all had babies. Several of them were director-level and we needed to hire senior-level temps/contractors to cover while while they were out, which… was not cheap at all. And so that whole year, we kept having to move budget money around and cut projects we wanted to do because we had to re-allocate money for parental leave coverage. It made those of us who had babies that year feel REALLY guilty and bad.

    7. Pisces*

      Yes. When I left ExEmployer, I had been covering a big part of another colleague’s job for six months and counting.

      For me the bigger issue was that management initially made it sound like she was on vacation, or at most a short-term leave of absence.

      ExEmployer has really painted itself into a corner. As it was, the department had become seriously understaffed. Then the management also restructured it in a way I’m certain makes the job unattractive to potential hires. Thank goodness I’m a spectator to however this turns out for them.

    8. xtinerat*

      Absolutely agree with this! I’m never going to have a kid and I will probably never have a spouse/partner. Folks like this are very vulnerable to bearing the brunt of everyone else’s leave time. And, at many companies, all of the policies related to flexibility are geared toward families, children, and spouses. So the single non-parents don’t get any of that leeway.

  77. Hiring Mgr*

    This isn’t always popular, but for the vacation/sick/bereavement etc. time, I’d suggest considering an unlimited PTO format where anybody can take days off for any reason and you don’t have to worry about how much you left for sick vs PTO, etc..

  78. I don’t post often*

    Haven’t read all the comments, but I am a white female, married to a white man. We suffered infertility, miscarriage, infant loss and finally the miracle birth of our daughter between 2012 and 2015.
    We then decided to adopt. Company offered $3,500 in reimbursement. (Note: infant adoption in the US is somewhere between $20k and $70k. Sometimes more than that. Foster care is technically “free” but comes with its own challenges. International adoption, again depending on when/ where/ child … frankly I’m not aware of the costs, but I know when we were looking five years ago, we anticipated $30-$40k.).
    Company also offered “birthmoms” meaning moms who physically gave birth to their children and then took leave 16 weeks of paid leave.
    As an adoptive parent, I only receive six weeks of paid leave and six weeks of unpaid leave.
    Company has upped the reimbursement amount for adoption to $10k. Still the same amount of leave.
    My advice is to not treat adoptive parents any differently when it comes to leave. Sure there is lots of focus on “breastfeeding and bonding with baby”. But imagine trying to bond with a baby you didn’t carry. Or bonding and parenting an older child that doesn’t speak the language (international adoption).
    Just my two cents.

    1. I should really pick a name*

      I think it’s reasonable to give extra time to the birthing parent because there is time needed for physical recovery.

      In Canada, we have two buckets of leave. One for the birthing parent (to recover), and one that is open to all parents (birth, adoptive, all genders).

      1. Anonymous Koala*

        I think the point here is that all new parents have their own challenges and could use equitable time off. Birth parents may require time for physical healing, but they’ve also had 9 months to prepare mentally, financially, and socially for their baby. Adoptive or foster parents may not have had the same amount of time to prepare and may need more time than a birth parent to bond with their new child because of language/cultural/socio-emotional barriers that new birth parents don’t have.

        1. allathian*

          Yes, this. Sure, adoptive parents usually have a fairly long time to prepare for eventually getting a child, but the period between getting the news and the actual placement is usually a lot shorter than 9 months.

          Besides which, except probably for newborns who are adopted straight out of the hospital, every adopted child has gone through the trauma of losing their birth parents, whether or not they actually remember them or not. And the older the kid, the larger the trauma, all other things being equal.

    2. BlueWolf*

      My company offers the same (paid) parental leave for everyone regardless of how the child came into your life and whether you are the primary caregiver or not. I don’t plan to become a parent, but I’m glad to work for a company that offers the same leave for everyone.

  79. Warrior Princess Xena*

    These are amazing. One thing you could do: in addition to providing benefits, making sure you have some straightforward literature on how best to use them would be great. One thing I see a lot of especially in new workers to the workplace is unfamiliarity with what benefits entail. One of my older family members, who has been in business for decades, is a senior manager, and is known as a fount of good advice for all of us in the family getting started, came to me with help on understanding his 401(k) policy because he didn’t have more than the foggiest idea what it was. When I started at my current workplace HR did a benefits Q&A that was super helpful, especially in explaining things like health insurance. Having a dedicated ‘ask the benefits person’ email address, or an FAQ page on a central intranet could also help.

    1. lilyp*

      I think this is also really important for benefits related to potentially sensitive issues like gender transition, fertility issues, same-gender partners, or parental leave — many people might not feel comfortable asking their boss or HR for information on those benefits if they’re not ready to come out at work or share their family plans yet. Information on benefits should be proactively communicated and easy for people to find *on their own* for reference later. You should also make sure all managers in your organization get trained on what the benefits are and trained to proactively share information with their direct reports.

    2. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

      OMG this is the call of my people!

      I have been so frustrated about accessing my considerable civil service/union negotiated benefits because our website is a cobbled-together MESS. Every time I think I’ve gotten to a useful place, I figure out that it only has 7% of what I need, and then the next site (if I can find it) needs yet another stinking password and login.

      1. Warrior Princess Xena*

        Ugh, yes.

        And a super, super common problem with equity that I see frequently in business and finance ESPECIALLY is that yes, technically everyone will have the same information, but people won’t have the same knowledge base to interpret that information. If you get two new employees where functionally the only difference between them is that one is a first generation college grad and one has a family history of college grads and/or business people, the second person is going to be much more likely to understand how to use the benefits offered and have a support system to ask questions, while the first person is going to be stuck with whatever the govt websites decide to tell them and potentially misleading family advice (family advice on money can be just as bad as family advice on hiring). Having a dedicated HR support person, FAQ page, or anything else along that line can be a high bang-for-buck solution to an irritating equity problem.

  81. CH*

    Ensure you have “parental leave” – not maternity or paternity leave. This is more inclusive for non-hetero couples, non-binary people, and may force you to rethink how much parental leave time is needed, regardless of the gender of the parent or their situation.

  82. Teekanne aus Schokolade*

    #2 needs more clarity. not a list of possible people but letting a manager decide who counts could go wrong in a hurry without a bit of guidance. I would be interested to see the rule written out.

  83. ZSD*

    I love the changes you’re making!

    Consider making sick time also explicitly “sick and safe time.” Some jurisdictions have laws mandating that sick time can be used as “safe time” to address needs related to abuse, assault, or stalking. For example, if you have to go to the courthouse to file a restraining order, you can use your sick and safe time for that. Or if you need to grab the kids and get to a shelter, etc.
    Relatedly, if you don’t already, please have a policy that managers can’t ask for proof that sick time is needed until the employee has used more than three (or even five!) consecutive days of sick time. This is good not only because it keeps people from having to go to the doctor if they’re out sick with a cold just so the doctor can sign a piece of paper saying, “Yep, she has a cold,” but also so that people who aren’t comfortable explaining that they’re using their sick time as safe time can just tell their boss that they’re going to the dentist (rather than filing a restraining order, etc.), and the boss won’t be able to demand proof.

    1. SP*

      YES THIS. I worked for an employer who required a doctors note for sick leave so I had to drag my sick ass to the doctor and waste his time and my time hogging an appointment slot that could have been used by someone who actually needed a doctor when we both knew all I needed to do was stay in bed with some NyQuil.

      Then of course I got a bill in the mail for my trouble.

      And then they wonder why people kept coming in sick and spreading germs.

  84. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

    Our benefits guide just came out for 2023, and I’m really pleased with one of the changes our org made. Up until 2022, long-term disability was provided to all benefits-eligible team members, but short-term disability was opt-in and paid for out of pre-tax funds (I think, I never opted in).

    As of 2023, short term disability at 50% pay with a 14 day waiting period is provided at no cost to all benefits-eligible team members (with the option to buy up the pay to 67% through salary deduction).
    ALSO, they instituted a salary continuation program that says once per twelve-month rolling period, any benefit-eligible team member who experiences a FMLA qualifying event can have their salary fully covered at 100% without PTO usage for up to 2 weeks, whether that’s needed to cover the waiting period for the short-term disability or just a medical leave of up to 2 weeks. This benefit becomes available after your first 30 days.

    1. Chauncy Gardener*

      My company started auto enrolling all employees into 100% employer paid ST and LT disability insurance. Thank goodness! Folks don’t realize how much that is worth

      1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        I was just floored by the two weeks of salary continuation — that’s HUGE.

  85. sometimeswhy*

    Seconding from above: EAPs (or something more substantial than an EAP on the mental healthcare side), floating holidays, dependent care stipend, commute benefits (especially if you’re somewhere transit-friendly; do a search for employer transit benefits in your area and you might even find an organization that sponsors/discounts/has grants/etc), tuition reimbursement and student loan support and adding:

    – A compassionate leave fund. People with excess leave can donate to it; people in need of leave can apply to use it. My company’s is just for bonafide illnesses with doctor certification but you could craft yours to include other things like bereavement or child bonding for people who haven’t accrued leave yet or who’ve had to drain their leave for an emergency.
    – Paid jury service time
    – Guaranteed ride home – again, especially if you’re somewhere transit friendly, being able to cab it home on the company dime if your kid needs to go home from school early helps encourage the use of transit instead of driving
    – Flexibility – have people work with their supervisors to figure out what works for them schedule wise to meet their deliverables. if necessary consider a core subset of three or four hours to accommodate being able to schedule necessary meetings but people’s productivity windows and personal lives don’t all fit into a tidy 9-to-5.

    1. MVC*

      We have a donated leave pool. You have to donate a minimum of 8 sick leave hours during open enrollment to be eligible to receive any pooled leave that year. I’m not sure what the criteria is to receive pooled leave, I have never had to use it (luckily), but it’s always worth it to me to donate the 8 hours just in case. But I’ll admit it’s easier for a longer-term employee who’s had time to bank extra sick leave to donate than it would be for a brand new employee.

  86. Rosie*

    This will be an unpopular comment, but I think it’s inappropriate to offer bereavement leave for animals. I think it’s especially inappropriate to refer to ‘human’ bereavement leave. Animals are not people, and to get involved in the caring responsibilities for them is not something a good employer should do, IMHO. I would not be happy to work for an employer who thought my mother’s death was worth only two days more support than the death of a colleague’s cat.

    I would also strongly suggest 10 days as a minimum for the death of an immediate family member. I have unfortunately had colleagues lose a child and if my employer had expected them back at work in the same calendar week there would have been a riot. Generosity here is less likely to be needed but more noticed and appreciated by literally everyone in the company. Someone who has buried a child deserves all the space time money and support you can manage.

    1. ZSD*

      I disagree with your stance on pets but agree wholeheartedly that three days is not enough for the loss of a parent, spouse, or child. I’m always appalled by employers (including mine) that only offer three days of bereavement leave, regardless of how close the person was to you. They ought to offer at least one full paid week off for close relatives, plus the offer to take more unpaid leave/use your sick time. If my husband died, I couldn’t possibly return to work that quickly!

    2. Caramel and Cheddar*

      Bereavement leave isn’t supposed to be about mourning, though; it’s about providing staff the time to manage the logistics of death, not the emotions of it. A bereavement policy that includes pets isn’t trying to put animals on par with humans (“your mother is only worth two days more support than Fergus’ cat”), it’s acknowledging that there are still logistical things to deal with when an animal dies. Fewer logistics, obviously, but logistics nonetheless.

      1. Higher Ed Cube Farmer*

        Yes and: if the “pet” is a service animal , the practical impact of its loss multiplies exponentially.

      2. allathian*

        Yes, this. Bereavement leave is about the logistics of a death, but that doesn’t mean that the person is expected to be done mourning. When my coworker’s adult stepson (who had never lived under his roof as a minor) died by suicide about a year ago, he took 5 days of bereavement leave, mainly to support his wife who was completely incapacitated by grief. I did not expect him to be back to his normal self straight away when he returned. We haven’t talked much about it since then, but I definitely noticed that after the long summer vacation he was more or less back to normal and that I’d stopped giving him extra leeway and taking all the tougher projects to make things easier for him. His wife took 6 months to recover enough to go back to work, most of it was sick leave/temporary disability.

        My parents had retired by the time their cats died, but if they had been working, they would’ve needed a day off at very short notice to deal with the logistics. As it was, they were visibly sad for weeks, and my mom at least got a lot of consolation from the canvas photos of the cats in their prime that we gave them on what would’ve been the cats’ (two brothers from the same litter) 17th birthday.

    3. Can’t Sit Still*

      Pet bereavement leave is a euphemism for euthanasia. You’re right that it doesn’t quite fit in the same category as familial bereavement, but it would be nice not to have to use a vacation day for it, like I did the last time I had to urgently euthanize a pet. And I really don’t think people want to have to have something called Euthanasia Leave on their time card.

      1. Middle Name Danger*

        I mean – it’s not necessarily euthanasia. When my last dog passed peacefully at home I still had to take that day off work to deal with logistics including cremation.

  87. Six for the Truth*

    As a trans person, it’s great when companies choose health plans that include gender affirming healthcare or trans-inclusive healthcare. Many trans people stay on HRT (hormone replacement therapy, meaning testosterone for trans men and usually estrogen and an anti-androgen for trans women) for many years or our entire lives, even if we don’t pursue surgery and don’t require counseling.

    HOWEVER, definitely look at the actual benefits of your health plan and how affordable medications and surgeries are. It’s great if medical treatments are handled the same regardless of gender identity – and less great if those things are expensive for everyone.

  88. Thin Mints didn't make me thin*

    It’s politically charged but it’s also economically sound: Fund ALL reproductive health care services, including travel if such services are not available in the employee’s home state. When we can choose when and how to have families, we are better able to work and feel comfortable doing so, and companies that do this are better able to attract and retain qualified women.

    Also, while you’re making sure your workplaces are accessible to people with disabilities, make sure your products (including Web sites and mobile apps) are also accessible.

  89. Mm*

    I also really like this as a “use it or lose it benefit.” A previous company had this and it encouraged me to spend $150 on some very, very nice walking shoes. Honestly life changing.

    I think there are a surprising number of life changing tweaks that exist for an affordable amount – ergonomic mouse, stand/sit desk, gym membership. Being the company that helps someone afford those inspires a lot of loyalty.

  90. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

    The best benefit plan I ever had was cafeteria style. Every election period we had (lets say) 1000 points in monthly company benefits. This was typically enough to cover Employee + Family Medical/dental/vision and have a little extra for either LTC insurance, AD&D insurance etc. If you did not use the 1000 points, (maybe you were covered by a spouse insurance), you could use the remaining points either for a reimbursement account election or anything left over would roll into a 401K matching plan.

    1. Anonymous Koala*

      I actually dislike this because I can see some people wanting all the benefits, even if they have to pay more to get them, and some people wanting all the cash (in hand, not in a 401k) and no benefits but being forced to get something they don’t want to use their points. I’d vote for traditional opt-in benefits and a cash payout in the amount of the employer contribution for people who opt out.

  91. SwampWitch85*

    Please please PLEASE make sure your medical coverage especially ER, in network specialist care, and prescription cover autoimmune and specialty diseases and disorders. I love that you’re working toward inclusion for women, parents, and the trans community but people with chronic illness get overlooked in this conversation a lot because it’s just assumed your insurance covers their care when lol, plot twist, it typically doesn’t. And the aforementioned people can also fall into this category of chronically ill. It’s a huge pain in the ass to have comprehensive prenatal coverage and paid leave but not have access to meds you need or leave you need because you’re not pregnant. Speaking from experience here.

    If you’ve seen a commercial for a medication, odds are it’s hundreds or thousands of dollars out of pocket and the copay isn’t much better. Please make sure your specialty drug and specialist medical is just as prolific. And by specialist I mean functional med, rheumatology, endocrinologist, not just Ob/Gyns and cardiologists.

    1. The Real Fran Fine*

      Yes! I take Qulipta for episodic migraines, and that mess is almost $1,100 for a 30 day supply. My insurance company doesn’t cover it because it’s considered too new, even though it’s providing me with great relief. If it weren’t for my neurologist getting me into the Qulipta care program, which allows me to get the meds for free for two years – or until my insurance decides to cover it, whichever comes first – I wouldn’t be able to afford it and I’d be in near daily agony.

  92. Sara H*

    Expanded parental leave that doesn’t depend on gender. At my company all new parents get 12 weeks fully paid, regardless of if they gave birth.

    I would also suggest childcare/elder care stipends and access to emergency childcare.

  93. Anon for this*

    I would like to come work for you. Also, make sure that your health insurance plan is actually *usable*. Great benefits after hitting the deductible are better if the deductible isn’t religious. People who have, or have a family member with, a chronic and expensive condition will often end up counting on paying the deductible – in some cases, the max OOP – so consider whether those are reasonable for people at the rate you’re paying.

    (If you want a baseline case to look at, consider someone like me, with a child with Crohn’s. The treatment for mine is infusions of Inflectra every 8 weeks – for some people it’s every 4 weeks, depending on how they respond. $3000 or more per infusion just for the medication, plus a couple hundred for the administration of it. And it would be nice if the insurance company processed the claims without arguing them, although that’s usually for related tests rather than the main treatment.)

      1. Dancing Otter*

        Thank you for the clarification. I was wondering if you were referring to the anointing of the sick, or prayer and fasting (because you couldn’t afford groceries after the deductible).

  94. hamsterpants*

    Flexible hours and WFH on demand at least, say, two days a week. If you don’t have a SAH partner to handle household logistics for you then they become almost impossible if you have an employer who’s really strict about having your butt in a seat in an office during traditional work hours.

  95. bookworm*

    It sounds like this is maybe something you’ve already done, but make sure you’ve got a good paid parental leave policy for non-birthing parents, and that the leave is consistent for different types of non-birthing parents. For example, my spouse was looking at a job that offered less time for non-birthing parental leave than for adoption, which was really weird.

  96. Kate*

    Medication coverage. Recent changes to our plan were touted by our bargaining agent as being “so much more inclusive!” because it made funds available for folks who are transitioning (yay!) but in exchange, they made significant concessions on drug coverage and physio access for those of us with disabilities, who are now going to be out of pocket by as much as is covered for folks who are transitioning (the cost of biologics is no joke…)

    It feels very much like our company playing two groups of vulnerable employees against each other.

    1. Caramel and Cheddar*

      I love expanding funding for transitioning while also reducing drug coverage, which transitioning people are often also going to need. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

  97. A Queer & Pleasant Arranger*

    Make sure that gender affirming care isn’t limited to binary trans employees, but also open to nobinary, agender, and other trans umbrella identities. Make sure that medication as well as medical procedures are covered. Use language that includes everyone for parental/adoption leave, nursing (breastfeeding/chestfeeding), and the like as well.

    Make sure the inclusion you seek is echoed in your policies, onboarding materials, and in use by all folks in your department.

  98. Constance Lloyd*

    My employer responded to Roe v Wade being overturned by immediately and retroactively expanding our insurance coverage to include absolutely no out of pocket costs for treatment associated with pregnancy. Birth control, prenatal care, labor and delivery, even NICU stays and home health care services if bed rest is needed are all covered at no out of pocket expense.

    1. The Prettiest Curse*

      Also: miscarriage care was mentioned above, but additional leave for any employees who have been through a miscarriage, stillbirth or had a baby in the NICU. And I don’t know how many people would feel comfortable telling their employer they’ve had an abortion in the current political environment, but extra time off to recover from abortion care too.

  99. Amethyst*

    Medical benefits: Look into hearing aid coverage for your staff. I’ve worked since I was 18 and am nearly 40 now and I’ve had only TWO insurances that provided coverage for my hearing aids. Everyone else never thinks of them, but offer vision coverage to everyone. Ears are just as important as our eyes so why do people consistently forget to cover the ear equipment, too?

    1. Chief+Petty+Officer+Tabby*

      And dental. Ye gods, do people forget that maintaining one’s teeth is expensive.

  100. mythopoeia*

    Lots of great suggestions so far. Mine is to make sure that whatever benefits you offer, they are also clearly communicated and supported. For example, HR at my workplace rolled out comprehensive guidance for supporting employees who are transitioning–how to update their names in systems, how managers of transitioning employees are expected to provide support, etc.–with a matter-of-fact tone.” Guidance and support like that are necessary for making these benefits actually land in people’s lives.

  101. General von Klinkerhoffen*

    I would encourage you to look at the benefits you offer to part-time employees. There are many medical conditions and social circumstances that get in the way of full time employment, and pro-rating salary/wage is only part of the puzzle for compensating part-time employees.

    Employers who only offer benefits to those working 40+ hours are either missing out on or seriously short-changing employees who make a valuable contribution to their business.

    Some benefits are easily pro rated just as salary is, eg 401k contribution, childcare contribution or PTO*; some would need more thought eg dental/vision cover.

    *(define it as a percentage of a standard working week per month, or whatever, eg in the UK the statutory minimum is quoted as 5.6 weeks per year so if you work four days a week you get 5.6×4 days a year, and if you work 20 hours a week you get 5.6×20 hours a year).

    1. Warbler watcher*

      Not just benefits for part-time workers – be more open to part-time workers in general. I finally did go on permanent disability, but a 20 to 25 hour a week tech job helped me postpone that for almost 15 years. That company was great about letting people move between part and full time work.

  102. Hannah*

    I may be misreading it, but it sounds like employees who contribute more than 3% get a smaller match? Shouldn’t it be – 100% on the first 3%, then 50% on 4-6%? So someone contributing 4% would get 3% + 1/2% in match, etc?

    1. Doctors Whom*

      No, they are saying that everyone gets 3% automatically. This isn’t a match.

      Then, you get 50% on up to 6%. (so, you can earn another 3% match for a total of 6%)

      The company matches 100% on up to 6% today.
      -So if today you are contributing 6%, the company contributes 6%.
      – Today if you are contributing 4% company contributes 4%.
      -Today if you are contributing 3%, the company contributes 3%.
      -Today if you are contributing 0%, company contributes 0%.

      What LW describes is:
      Everyone gets 3% as a floor. Not a match – automatic.
      – If you contribute 0%, you get 3%.
      -If you contribute 4% you get 3% (automatic) plus 2% (which is 50% match on your 4%) for a total of 5%.
      – If you contribute 6%, you get 3% (automatic) plus 3% (which is 50% on your 6%) for a total of 6%.

      For people who contribute 6% or more already, nothing changes.
      For people who contribute less, the company is contributing more than today.

  104. irene adler*

    Attention to individual ergonomics. For many, this doesn’t rise to being a medical issue, just a comfort issue-which is still very important! It can be a very uncomfortable distraction just ‘making do’ with furniture and fixtures that don’t fit.

    Examples:
    heavier employees may be more comfortable with chairs that are designed with them in mind (arms don’t pinch in, wider or more depth). A desk that accommodates the wider chair.

    taller employees might want taller chairs or chairs with more depth. Or a desk with additional legroom underneath.

    shorter: handy step stools (yes, multiples- so they are easy to use throughout the building) or, even better, lower shelving. Reaching that top shelf is murder for us short folks!

    left-handed set-up for using mouse/trackball next to a keyboard. I have a tray for my keyboard where the trackball sits to the side. This tray was adapted for left-handed use.

    These things exist; it may take a little more searching out to find them.

    1. SpiderLadyCEO*

      Seconding this SO MUCH.

      And creating a culture of different setups!

      I had to work on the floor a lot because my desk fit my body so poorly: getting easy to raise and lower screens could have helped that, specialty chairs that let you change how you sit…I do know they are expensive, but it helps a lot.

    2. xtinerat*

      Yes! My company is mostly remote and one of their benefits includes a free ergonomics consultation for WFH setups!

    3. xtinerat*

      Yes! My company is mostly remote and one of their benefits includes a free ergonomics consultation for WFH setups!

  105. sam_i_am*

    If possible, make surgical interventions for trans employees/dependents *not* depend on whether they are on hormones. I (and I know others similar to me) would like to get top surgery but not go on testosterone, but my insurance won’t cover the surgery if I’m not on HRT for x amount of time.

  106. The Pirate Queen*

    Sunny Day Fund! They offer employer-matched emergency savings accounts (full disclosure: I freelance for them, but I really like their product and their mission).

  107. SpiderLadyCEO*

    I love this! My two comments are: make sure your healthcare works as planned, because I know my friend has been fighting a lot for gender affirming healthcare that the company SAYS it sponsored and then healthcare did not. I do not recall the specifics, but I think it might have been something like ongoing bloodwork for hormone therapy.

    The second thing, and take this with a grain of salt because I am Catholic, and not Jewish, but at my previous workplace, work ended at 4 on Fridays, and I do think that was so my Jewish coworkers could be home before sundown. That might be a good policy to implement – and I promise you, everyone will benefit.

  108. Puffalope*

    My company has a few benefits I love.
    1. They keep health insurance premiums low by offering a plan with a high deductible. But then the company pays the entire deductible for us. We are responsible for our own copays, but that’s it.
    2. Employees out on short-term disability receive 100% of their salary, not a reduced amount.
    3. Long-term disability premiums are automatically taken out post-tax. We used to have a choice between post-tax and pre-tax, but too many people weren’t aware that if the premiums are taken out pre-tax, then any insurance payments you receive later on are taxable.

  110. REH*

    First of all…great ideas and love that you are doing this! You’re already ahead of the game in terms of the improvements you’re planning on making.

    I’d suggest looking at health coverage – yours might already be in good shape, but what’s your deductible? Do you have an HRA/FSA? How much are employees having to pay out of pocket? If you put yourselves in the shoes of an employee who, for example, has a chronic medical condition, or is giving birth, or dealing with a serious disease such as cancer, what financial burden might they be dealing with? (I’m thinking of myself – I have an autoimmune disease that is being well-managed, but requires regular monitoring/testing that is often expensive.)

    Health coverage is a major area where employees can run into unexpected expenses, and taking a deep dive into it could find some areas where you can make your employees lives a lot better. I’m honestly always kind of confused about why certain procedures and tests are covered more fully than others – it feels like you never know what’s going to be mostly covered and which will be largely out of pocket. If you can do some of the work for your employers to make your plan more sensible, equitable, and easier to understand, that would be amazing.

    I also saw the idea someone else mentioned about a medical concierge – what a wonderful idea! Dealing with health insurance is extremely confusing and stressful to navigate – even more so if you’re already experiencing stress from an illness or injury. It would be amazing to have help with that!

  111. Anonymous Koala*

    One thing my employer does is offer us the option of earning credit hours during weeks when billables hit above 45 hours/week, and then giving us time to use those credit hours as PTO during slow seasons. It goes a long way towards morale during busy season (when some of us are billing 70+ hours a week) to know that you’re racking up PTO for when work slows down, and some of my colleagues have taken whole weeks off during slow seasons on credit hours alone. I realize this doesn’t work for every industry but if you can manage it I highly recommend it.

  112. Doctors Whom*

    Payment for jury service time.

    My employer pays your full salary. You have to remit back to them the pittance that your jurisdiction pays you for jury service – the idea is that the employer keeps you whole (you don’t “profit”).

    Military leave to include a related allowance for military family members to support PCS, returns home during R&R leave from forward locations or remote tours. (If your partner is on a 12-month remote to Korea, wouldn’t it be nice to get to take the week off that they come home in the middle, without it being chargeable to your PTO? As a military spouse you are already at so many disadvantages careerwise.)

  113. Angry socialist*

    Drastically increase coverage for mental health. And I don’t mean company-branded “wellness” seminar. Cover counseling, psychiatry, med management, partial hospitalization programs, group therapy, ALL of it, EVEN out-of-network. Mental health care capacity is so low that there’s no chance I’m finding an in-network provider that meets my needs, especially when you keep changing the network. So pay up if you want happy, productive, healthy workers who are not burnt out or quitting.

  114. St Lucia*

    Useful benefits from my former employer include:
    – Free meeting once per year with a certified financial planner.
    – Reimbursement for paid tax preparation (up to $400/yr).
    – Tuition reimbursement for college or graduate classes.
    – Back-up childcare center (for when your regular provider is closed/unavailable). This was something the company contracted out to an established child care center.
    – 1X/person orthodontia reimbursement (up to $8000). Including children!
    – $1500/year per employee (including their family) to help with buying new glasses, hearing aids etc. which are usually not covered at all by health insurance
    – Option for using pre-tax dollars for dependent care (such as childcare or elder care).
    – EAP

  115. AnonMouse*

    Can you look at your long term disability policy? If the employer is paying premiums and the employee doesn’t pay tax on them, the LTD payments are taxable income if the employee becomes disabled. if they pay the premium after tax, the LTD is non taxable income.

    As some one with a chronic illness I woul LOVE to have the option to buy into an additional policy post tax. I don’t know the IRS regs in full, but it would be one more option for an overlooked group.

  116. Pocket Mouse*

    Slightly tangential, but make sure your policies and procedures around benefits are clearly described and readily accessible to all employees. Do not force people to ask other staff for information or to take action to access forms, particularly for purposes they may wish to keep as private as possible. Do make sure to list at least one contact for each procedure that an employee can go to and be sure their inquiry will remain confidential. To the extent possible, minimize barriers to using the benefits you offer!

  117. St Lucia*

    – Scholarships for employee’s children attending college (undergraduate). My employer offered $2000 per child per year of college, paid directly to the college. The child had to be enrolled “full time” at an institution recognized by FASFA, and there was a minimum ACT/SAT score.

  118. Infertile fairy*

    Check your fertility benefit actually covers things. I have fertility “covered” on my heath insurance and I still nearly paid 10,000. I was lucky i had a separate insurance that eventually covered it but i would check on what it actually covers.

  119. Harvest Mouse*

    Re: trans healthcare, once you take that step, it’s a good idea to also engage a patient advocate to work with your insurance company to make sure things ACTUALLY get covered!

    I’m covered through my spouse’s plan, and while ostensibly everything related to my transition should be covered, in practice we have had to fight with the insurance company to get them to stop saying “but is this REALLY medically necessary?”

    Look into things like making sure that dermatologist visits to deal with T acne, laser hair removal, etc—the not “go on hormones” parts of gender-affirming care that are still very important—are actually covered, too.

    Also, congrats on taking these steps and asking these questions! It’s cool to see :)

  120. Snow Globe*

    One benefit that I haven’t seen yet: I worked for a large financial institution that provided employees with an online personal financial education training series (entirely optional). It started with the basics of budgeting and saving, then got into topics like insurance, wills and charitable giving. There were also modules for elementary and high school kids that was available for parents. It was an excellent program and can be really helpful for people that just never got that kind of education.

    Also, another cool benefit was that the company paid legal fees to set up a will. There were certain attorneys in town that we could use—I think it was somehow included in our EAP. I used the benefit but most of the people I talked to at work weren’t even aware of it.

    2. I'm just here for the cats!*

      or the day after or be flexible if someone calls out because of election results that affect them in a negative way.

    3. Sylvan*

      Or a paid day to take off either during early voting (if it’s available where you live) or on election day.

  122. Sindirella*

    Allow your medical plan to cover domestic partnerships!! From your other suggestions, maybe it already does, but I’ve been begging for this for YEARS with my current company.

  123. Puffalope*

    I’ve already posted but have thought of a couple more benefits my company offers.
    • The company pays for travel expenses for any employee who has to travel out of state to receive medical care.
    • We have backup child and elder care through Bright Horizons.

  124. JustKnope*

    For 2023, my employer changed mental health services to cover all out of network providers the same way they’d cover in network providers. It’s really helpful because finding in network therapists who take insurance and have availability is HARD. So they will now reimburse any therapy / psych at in network rates.

    These are the kind of technical considerations that really make a difference in access to mental health resources.

  125. SwampWitch85*

    I love what you’re doing for parents and your LGBTQIIA+ staff, but also PLEASE make sure your insurance covers people with chronic illness: specialists, RX, specialty medication/treatment, referrals, low out of pocket caps, and assistance tools/PT. Make sure they’re covered with the same kind of leave/attendance expectations and grace you’d give a parent. A lot of the time chronically ill employees get overlooked in the leave/medical coverage conversation because people assume their illness is covered by insurance when, lol, surprise, it is not. If you’ve seen a commercial for the medication, odds are the out of pocket cost with insurance is still in the high hundreds. I was in a lot of situations where I had ample maternity care/coverage/leave that I wasn’t going to use, but my chronic illness was treated like liability with exasperation and annoyance by my employer. And by medical specialist coverage, I mean rheumatology, endocrinology, gastro, hematology, not just OB/GYN and like one cardiologist are covered.

  126. Khatul Madame*

    Please understand that with the generous leave allowance the work will still need to be done. To keep the workload manageable you will need more staff.
    This will impact operating costs, profits, maybe share price. I still applaud the intent, but you, and your company management, need to have a realistic picture of what it will take.

  127. MVC*

    We have 8 hours of “educational leave” per year. It’s pretty broad. The employee can use it for themselves if they’re taking a class, or do something like volunteer for the day at a local school, chaperon their child’s field trip, or attend the graduation of a family member. It doesn’t roll over.

  128. Sparkle llama*

    Some benefits I have had or seen:
    Post retirement healthcare savings plan (effectively an HSA that you can’t touch until retirement with not requirement to be on a high deductible plan)

    Paid volunteer time, donation matches, or matching volunteer time with donations to the non profit as well as paying you.

    Allowing conversion of sick leave or PTO into HSA. Many people at a previous work place paid for their kid’s braces this way.

  129. Michelle*

    Bereavement leave – 3 days is not enough. I worked for a company that had 5 days and then lowered it to 3. My mother passed away and I couldn’t imagine having to go back to work after only 3 days. She was always good with timing (she’d appreciate the joke) and she passed on 12/22 (10 days after my 40th, and we don’t celebrate Christmas). Based on how I had my PTO already approved for the rest of the year, plus holiday closures and bereavement, I didn’t have to go back until after the first of the year. My father had been diagnosed with cancer at Thanksgiving, and he broke his foot the night before the funeral. 14 days wasn’t enough, but 3 days – I would have not been able to function and would have been in the office in body only.

    1. The Bill Murray Disagreement*

      I’m sorry for your loss; your comment stood out for me because my mom also passed on the 22nd of December (though several years ago). I only had a week bereavement, but my boss at the time told me don’t worry about it and take as much time as I needed and we’d figure out how to get it paid later.

      I’ve also seen bosses who read down a checklist of relationships to see if you can even take bereavement. I’m a firm believer of 2 weeks standard bereavement for any family member of any relationship, and a month for a spouse/partner or child.

    2. allathian*

      It’s been said before but it bears repeating, bereavement leave is given so that people can deal with the *logistics* of a death. Nobody in their right mind would expect employees to be done mourning on the 4th day after the death of a loved one. This is also the reason that people are given more bereavement leave when they’re more likely to need to deal with the logistics than otherwise. Of course, if someone’s been raised by their grandparents and is responsible for dealing with the logistics, they should get the same leave they’d get for the death of their parents.

      Commenters in the US, how common is it for employees to take FMLA leave when they’re mourning?

      1. The Bill Murray Disagreement*

        I could be mistaken, but I don’t think FMLA extends to mourning (unless there’s a separate serious health condition that is occurring in parallel). I was eligible to take FMLA to care for my husband at the end of his life, but FMLA would have ended once he died.

  130. LovelyTresses*

    Love that your company is working to be more inclusive! Something that I think is often overlooked: bereavement is highly personal and often done in accordance with the loved ones religious traditions — and some faith/religious traditions have bereavement/grief/funeral services that are longer than three days. For example, in Hmong culture, funerals are a specific number of days and nights (3 or 4, I can’t recall) but the funerals are full days and nights; Jewish people sit shiva for one, three, or seven days; Buddhists don’t typically have just one funeral, so funeral services can last for 3, 5 or 7 days etc. You might want to see if your policy can be made more open-ended to accommodate varying traditions — as well as the complex ways people experience loss and grief. The death of child vs. the death of a grandparent. Sudden, unexpected loss vs. family member who died in hospice etc. Each of these scenarios would require wildly different time off.

    1. OyHiOh*

      And also, that bereavement leave can be taken on extremely short notice and/or set up with a single phone call. Some faith traditions (Judaism for one), funerals are supposed to happen no more than 24 hours after death.

  131. spinstah*

    -Generous PTO/vacation time: At my old job, everyone was given one week on day one, and the amount you accrued each year increased every ~3 years I think. At my current job, I will not seen an increase until my 9th(!) anniversary.

    -Mental health reimbursement: Also at my old job, I didn’t have to deal with insurance or trying to find someone in network. I paid out of pocket and got reimbursed for all but $10/visit. If you can find a way to cover this that isn’t reimbursement based, even better. At the very least make sure you lay out the reimbursement process very clearly & in detail so it’s easy for folks to follow so they can get reimbursed quickly.

    I would love to have a wellness stipend, or a stipend for home office needs. I’m permanently remote and can’t take part in things that are happening around the office hubs, or use the onsite gyms.

    A lot of the health-related benefits at my current job are tied to being on one of the company-sponsored health plans. I’m on my partner’s, so I’m not even eligible for a huge swath of the benefits. I’m sure it’s cheaper for the company this way, but it would be nice if they decoupled this stuff more.

  132. Kimmy Schmidt*

    If you don’t have it already, establish inclusive parental leave. All parents of all genders can take paid leave for birth, adoption, or fostering.

  133. Temperance*

    Check how your health insurance handles people who are trans. While it’s great that you’re providing trans-related care, there are also weird logistical issues that come up for trans folks often (like if someone is coded as male by the insurer, they can’t get coverage for pap smears).

  134. I'm just here for the cats!*

    I think everything sounds lovely. Like others have mentioned, maybe having some sort of floating holiday or something for other religions. Or even just having a policy about being flexible. Depending on the business and the role if your company typically is closed for Christian holidays having those 4-5 days (Christmas eve and day, easter, good Friday, and easter Monday) that people can work those days and have another day off later or have some other type of flexibility.

    I am concerned by #4. Are you saying that your company or the health insurance for your company did not allow for fertility treatments for folx who were not heterosexual? If so I am so very glad you are changing that policy as that is VERY discriminatory. I wonder, would a single woman be able to have fertility treatments/IVF ?

    Glad your company is on the right track!

  135. Educator*

    If applicable, maximum flexibility around corporate travel is really helpful for people with all sorts of different needs. Higher food stipends, individual rooms, taking flight preferences into account even when it incurs expense, etc.

    I’ve really enjoyed community volunteer programs with paid volunteer days, especially when they are sustained and meaningful partnerships. (Like the IT company that gave a local nonprofit its old computers, and let volunteers from their team come over, paid, to help set up and maintain them.)

    If you are in person, I have also really enjoyed on-site classes (optional and non-exclusive, of course!) for things tangential to, but not directly necessary for, my work, like classes in a language gaining prominence in our community.

  136. Meep*

    I have to preface this with part of my c-PSTD is tied to my uterus and a former manager that was obsessed with it, but all the fertility and family planning concerns, while nice, seem invasive to me. I would lump it into a single policy with childcare stiphens.

  137. HigherEdEscapee*

    A friend who is the 1st non-founder employee at what is now a fairly successful tech company explained their time off policy to me. I thought it was fairly innovative and inclusive.

    The company is open 365 days a year. It is not closed for any religious holidays or federal holidays. As a result the PTO banks for all employees cover not only a generous amount of vacation time but also, if I remember correctly, the equivalent of 15 Federal holidays and all of the “major” religious and secular holidays. So if you don’t celebrate Christmas and want to get some work done, you can be in the office or work remotely that day. They’ve been in business for 20+ years and it’s been working really well.

    Part of this came from having, if I remember correctly, an atheist and Hindu cofounder pair who wanted something that worked for them and everyone they’d hire.

    1. higheredadmin*

      I have worked in an office like this and it was great. If you wanted to work all through the traditional Christmas holidays and take your vacation time at another point, then you could. It does work really well and is totally logical.

    2. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      That’s actually how my 35000-employee org does it — the holidays are all included in the PTO bank, and you can use them on the holiday or not. (A few offices are closed on weekends/holidays, but we’re a multi-hospital system and almost all our buildings are open 24/7, plus great whomping swaths of the administration are fully or partially remote and can work whether the buildings are open or not.)

  138. Formerly Ella Vader*

    Make the information about the benefits plan easily available, to candidates, employees, and supervisors. My field employee who doesn’t navigate websites easily should be able to find out how to get mental health care without asking me for help. The candidate who might not accept the job if it didn’t offer supplemental health insurance for their domestic partner or if the days off wouldn’t cover enough school holidays for a single parent shouldn’t have to ask about that in the interview.

    Also, don’t just talk about the parts of “benefits” that the company buys from an insurance company. Talk about the other things the company offers to help take care of people – the work-at-home rules and flexibility on hours, the professional-development allowance, the ergonomic consultation and choice of furniture, the PPE reimbursement, the cash advances meaning that you don’t need to carry credit-card debt while driving a rental car on a work trip and you don’t need to grovel to get them, the custom of never being asked to explain or prove why you’re taking a sick day. Many of those considerations can be improved without the company spending more money externally – they might take more work to administer or might require more coaching for managers, but are definitely worth it in workers who feel supported and respected.

  139. Meow*

    Expanded mental healthcare. Most companies say they offer mental health care because the health insurance covers a few local providers and they have a basic EAP. Although these services are often sufficient for some employees, I can pretty much guarantee that you also have employees that have more complex mental health needs that those things don’t work for. From personal experience, I can say that many covered providers and basically all EAP providers are not equipped to provide the type of therapy, treatments and medications needed for profound mental illness. As an example, I spent about $7000 out of pocket on therapy last year. My employer made a switch to a new health insurance company with much better coverage and this year its costing me only $2000 out of pocket. It was a HUGE relief.

    1. Angry socialist*

      I heartily endorse this, as someone for whom 4-6 covered sessions is laughably inadequate and whose maintenance meds just DOUBLED in price and there’s nothing I can do about it.

    2. raktajino*

      My employer’s plan covers a set amount of mental health care with no network requirements. If there’s a diagnosis, they’ll cover it. If you’re out of network you do have to submit your paperwork yourself, but eventually I do get paid back. Having no network cap is essential given how few therapists have openings and actually work with insurance.

      It’s very poorly advertised though, and the insurance company’s boilerplate documentation doesn’t mention it.

  141. Calliope*

    An important thing with fertility benefits is that they should be available without a diagnosis of infertility. That might be what you mean when you say they’re extended beyond heterosexual couples. But as it now stands a lot of people who aren’t in heterosexual relationships have to pay out of pocket for treatments long enough to “establish” medical infertility. Usually this is six IUIs which can be $8000.

  142. Crazy Plant Lady*

    My EAP includes 24-hr lactation support via phone. Every new mom I’ve talked to has said that having access to this was the best thing ever. They didn’t have to feel bad about calling at 2am while holding a screaming baby that won’t latch on. This kind of support is super helpful for enabling those who want to breastfeed to be able to do so.

    1. AnotherSarah*

      YES YES YES. This is included in our health care plan, but for me as a nursing parent, it was so important–I got three in-home visits and 24-hour support from a nursing line. It’s wise to review what the actual benefits of your health insurance are and supplement that with an EAP where needed.

  143. Anne of Green Gables*

    One benefit option that my husband’s employer started offering a few years ago is legal insurance. We were in the middle of his green card/citizenship/naturalization process at the time and knew we would have multiple instances of needing a lawyer; we also used it just to create (and then later update) our wills. It saved us quite a bit of money.

  144. QAPeon*

    What about continuing education? My org really supports that and will reimburse 50% of tuition for any classes that are career related or count towards a degree/cert that would be (I was help desk and got support for Web Design classes even though I wasn’t currently doing web design). They also give 3 hours a week of paid time to go take the class or do homework or whatever.

  145. Abby*

    perhaps defining it as leave for religious observation or volunteer activities (or something that gets at the “this is a day to do something specific and not just an extra day for your summer vacation)? I worked in an office that provided a day of volunteer leave and I really liked it. I used it to attend daytime board meetings, others for running a race for charity, earth day stuff, etc. it didn’t roll over and most people didn’t use it, so that’s why I suggest it as something that could be grouped in with religious observations in a way that includes everyone. say 3 days – so you could use some for religious observation and others for a volunteer project, if both are of interest. I am also an atheist (and culturally Christian, so my family holidays are off by default) so would welcome pushback if this doesn’t land well from a religious person’s perspective

    1. Biology Dropout*

      This is an interesting idea! I will say, as a Jew, I’d use at least 3 days just for religious holidays (just as a heads up).

    2. JM60*

      perhaps defining it as leave for religious observation or volunteer activities (or something that gets at the “this is a day to do something specific and not just an extra day for your summer vacation)?

      Why not just make it a day off for any reason the employee deems fit, including an extra day for your summer vacation? Your approach would require that I, an atheist, would either need to lie, or do volunteer activities that they wouldn’t need to do, to get the same benefit as they get.

      Depending on the specifics of your religious beliefs, taking a day off for religious reasons doesn’t actually mean that you have to do anything. At a minimum, it would only mean that that day has religious importance to you. Some Christians observe Christmas the same way I observe most Monday holidays that my employer observes: By enjoying a day off.

      1. allathian*

        Yes, as a lapsed Lutheran, that’s exactly what I do. But even though I’m not a believer, I’ve grown up surrounded by a Christian/secular culture. While it doesn’t read as particularly Christian to me, it certainly does to anyone who’s been raised in or is an active participant in another religious tradition.

  146. Eating Plantains*

    How about eliminate PTO/sick days? By that I mean don’t have a set number of days you have to take off for the year. Make it so that if an employee needs a day, they can take a day (or however long). I worked at a place that did this and for the most part it was not abused. The caveat is that you actually have to do your work. So if you want to take every Friday off and you get your workload done, you can do so.

    1. higheredadmin*

      I have always worked for employers with “unlimited” sick leave that is not counted as part of your vacation days. (It is actually not unlimited – HR monitors sick leave and if someone is taking a lot of sick days this will prompt discussions re: what is going on, are there accommodations that are needed, should this person go on FMLA/leave.) I think we all need to admit that having folks accrue and then “spend” sick days is barbaric. You just don’t know what is going to happen, and it only encourages people to come into the office sick and make everyone else sick. (Or to send their sick kids to school because they can’t take a day off, and their kids make all the other kids/families sick.)

    2. Elizabeth*

      I agree that the model of having a set number of days is barbaric, but workplace culture is an important component of this policy. If you have no set number of sick/PTO days, but the culture is to work nonstop, then employees are likely to self-monitor and take fewer days than they would if they have a set number of days. Leadership needs to set a good example on this kind of policy or it actually backfires.

    3. JM60*

      This has been proven to cause people to take less time off, on average. I personally hate this approach because I want as many paid days off as I can get, and having a set number of days off makes me know how much is okay to take off. Leaving the number of days off undefined makes me feel like I’m always negotiating my vacation benefit on-the-job, rather than negotiating it before taking the job.

      Also, I would argue that “abuse” is a meaningless concept when it comes to such policies. If you request 365 days off per year, and your manager approve it, it’s not abuse for you to use it.

  147. JTA*

    If someone has to travel out of state due to the death of a parent/sibling/other close relation, 3 days is insufficient.

  148. Anononon for this on.*

    Thank you for including pets in your sick leave. Just had a puppy emergency and was useless 4.5 of my 8 hours working from home. Am trying to make up the time, but will have to take some vacation leave. In spite of the fact I use very little sick leave. My dog having grand mal seizures is more traumatic than a kid’s dental appointment, but is treated like an annoyance that I should deal with after hours. I am blessed in being able to WFH that day (a rarity) to be ready to go when an emergency spot opened up at the vet. But taking a sick day would have been far easier on me. Tell them great job!

  149. RumbaWaltz*

    Immediate thoughts, in order of how you listed them –

    1) Health insurance: Improve coverage and lower costs. Adding trans coverage is excellent, but raising the overall level of coverage will impact more people; i.e. cover more of the premium (all of it if possible, I’ve worked for a couple places that provided it with no employee premium at all), lower copays/deductibles/out-of-pocket max, better out of network coverage, etc. Be sure the plan includes thorough coverage for mental health and chiropractic – 2 things that many policies either don’t cover or have skimpy benefits for. I’m sure this is already on your list, but better-than-average dental and vision plans should also be a priority.

    2) Sick leave: Allow sick leave to be used for pre-scheduled medical appointments or procedures as well as unexpected illnesses. Those of us that don’t get sick very often end up either leaving money on the table in the form of unused sick time that expires or feeling vaguely guilty about taking mental health days just to burn some sick time. If I could have used sick time instead of vacation time when I had LASIK, for example, I could have saved the time towards a real vacation.

    3) Bereavement leave: Good start, but go further. As other commenters have noted, 3 days is frequently not enough, especially if travel to the service is required. I’d encourage you to allow a week for humans, and consider 2 weeks for immediate family (spouse/partner, parent, child, sibling, grandparents, expanded to allow for whatever household a person was raised in but may not have been closely related to). Require documentation if necessary to justify the longer times. One company I worked for provided the 2 weeks for immediate family, and it was greatly appreciated by employees. Another thing to consider is the emotional impact of grief – bereavement leave has typically been structured only for attending the service, but when my grandma passed I had to return to work to avoid burning too much PTO and I was honestly in no fit mental state to be back at work yet. If possible, allow the total time to be taken separately, such as taking a week for travel to the service but then the additional week can be taken as needed as mental health days for, say, up to 3-6 months after the loss.

    Other things that weren’t on your list –

    a) PLEASE ensure that you don’t inadvertently provide significantly better benefits to parents than non-parents. As a childfree person, it really grates when parents get all kinds of perks that have an objective monetary value just for making what is essentially a lifestyle choice. If having children is subsidized by the company when employees’ family status isn’t relevant to the work the company does, why aren’t non-parents’ lifestyle choices also subsidized? Think about ways to level the playing field so that non-parents in your company also feel like the company supports their personal lives.
    Possibilities:
    – Ensuring the health plan covers contraception–including elective sterilization–at very low cost if not free. (ESPECIALLY if you’re going to cover infertility treatment…this is a serious pet peeve of mine.) Same with abortion, if you’re in a legal state; if you’re not in a legal state, covering travel and PTO for employees seeking an abortion.
    – Bonding leave after the adoption of a pet
    – Monthly stipend specifically earmarked for hobbies or travel (require receipts)

    b) I know you mentioned a student loan benefit, but also tuition reimbursement if you don’t already offer it, or other professional development programs.

    I think other commenters have covered the rest of my thoughts, but that’s my $0.02!

    1. Anon for This*

      I agree very much with your additional point A. While I get the need for parental leave, it is a clear statement of which life choices are valued to get paid time off to deal with the realities, and which are not. I’ve often thought that if we’re extending paid parental leave, shouldn’t there be a paid sabbatical leave for childfree people to pursue their challenging life goals? (I acknowledge adding kids to your family is not a vacation.) The equivalent that gets thrown around is giving paid leave for other family medical care, but that feels different — as it is generally for a much less joyful part of one’s life, compared to what (I hope) adding a child to your family and taking time to bond with them includes.

      I know I’ll get no traction on this anywhere, because child-having is prioritized and valued in our society. But it always bugs me as I’ve covered for maternity leave after maternity leave, knowing never would I be extended a paid sabbatical to pursue the things more important to me than reproduction – train for a PR in a marathon or write that book I’ve been dreaming of or whatever. Hell, make it like a punch card at the deli: “You’ve covered for 10 parental leaves, you earned a free non-maternity sabbatical!” (Sorry, that’s silly, I know. It’s just… real.)

      1. RumbaWaltz*

        Not silly, and I totally get it! Covering maternity leaves can be a lot of extra work, and it’s frustrating to know that you likely won’t receive the same consideration or support because you’re not a parent.

        Out of respect for Alison’s commenting rules, I won’t start a long off-topic debate about parental leave (in which I would also get flamed for not kneeling at the altar of parenting, LOL), but suffice to say I have strong opinions about parental leave as it relates to equity and inclusion in the workplace!

      2. Solokid*

        CF solidarity … but ultimately raising kids “helps society” (feeds capitalist labor churn) , whereas our challenging sabbaticals likely wouldn’t. I’m ok giving parents more corporate time off. Not dealing with diaper blowouts or meddling inlaws or navigating pickups IS my vacation.

        I’ve never had to deal with covering maternity, but if I did, my boss knows I work 9-5 and what doesn’t get done isn’t getting done.

    2. allathian*

      I don’t think the problem here is parental leave per se, it’s rather a badly designed system that means that whenever someone’s away from work for any amount of time, there’s not enough real coverage or cross-training, so it’s a disproportionate burden on those who never benefit from a longer leave.

      The advantage of working in a system where multi-week summer vacations are standard is that there’s slightly more slack built in to the system to keep it ticking over even when someone’s away for an extended period of time. That said, because our maternity leave is at least 6 months, and with parental leave many are absent for a year or more, the period is long enough to hire someone new for that position. Doing maternity leave coverage is also a great way to get your foot in the door, my team has hired plenty of former maternity leave subs when the opportunity’s been there.

  150. MVC*

    We’re offered up to $200/year stipend for participating in free wellness events. You earn it in increments ($5-$50) here and there throughout the year. It includes things like seminars on money management, chair yoga, first aid training, health screenings, step challenges. You just pick and choose what you want to participate in and cash out at the end of the year. When the Covid vaccine became available we got the entire $200 for getting our shot. (We also got an extra day of sick leave we could use to recover from the shot if we needed it. It was a one-time thing but a really nice gesture.)

  151. higheredadmin*

    We get paid time off to vote, which I think is cool. (It’s up to a half-day.) I worked somewhere many years ago where the standard vacation pot was five weeks, but you could “sell” up to five days back to the company, or conversely “buy” five days to get up to six weeks. I just loved that flexibility, and as a young person who wanted to travel I was happy to lower my salary just a little to get the extra vacation week. I guess what I’m saying is – being flexible on the knowledge that one thing doesn’t fit everyone is great.

  152. Sarra N. Dipity*

    Legal services. I read through the whole comment section and nobody mentioned this! At a previous job, we had the option to have legal assistance for things like drawing up wills or healthcare/financial power of attorney documents.

  153. Meg*

    Not sure if anyone has said this yet (I haven’t read through all the comments), but I’ve often received questions regarding bereavement leave for a miscarriage. Sometimes someone may take medical leave, but since you may not always require medical leave for a miscarriage, it could be good language to include. You may also have people whose partner physically experienced the miscarriage, but both people are grieving.

    1. LegalEagle*

      Seconding this! Bereavement leave should be extended to people experiencing miscarriages and stillbirths. Some states also have bereavement leave requirements that provide bereavement leave for people who have experienced an unsuccessful round of IVF or an unsuccessful intrauterine insemination, as well as when an adoption or surrogacy agreement falls through, or a person experiences another event that impacts their fertility.

  154. ThursdaysGeek*

    I wish health care weren’t tied to employment, but since it is — when a person retires and either they or spouse are less than age 65, is there any option for continuing the company health care, or are they limited to COBRA or whatever they can find on the open market?

    I’m also wondering who is paying for all these benefits you’re offering! Either you’re very profitable, or some of these benefits are going to have to cost the employees too. Well, health care usually does anyway.

  155. Persephone Mulberry*

    If not already included as part of your health plan benefits, VISION and DENTAL.

    (I really don’t understand how the health insurance system in this country got away with treating eyes and teeth as optional add-on accessories, but that’s a rant for a different day.)

    1. Talvi*

      Related, actually adequate coverage of vision and dental. My vision plan only covers $400 every 2 years for glasses. That doesn’t even cover the cost of my lenses.

  156. DataSci*

    Equitable parental leave policies. This means including people who become parents by adoption and non-birthing parents – none of this “if you give birth, you get twelve weeks fully paid – if you don’t, you get four weeks” nonsense. I’ve seen weird pushback on this thread from people acting like if you give adoptive parents enough time to bond with their kids and find a daycare situation (lots of adoptive parents don’t have enough notice to line something up in advance) it’s taking time away from birthing parents, which is just bizarre. Sure, if you give birth you need to physically recover – but a kid needs the same amount of care whether or not their birthing parent is in the house with them. When we adopted our son, non-birthing parents were offered TWO WEEKS. If my wife had been in the same situation, we’d have been without leave at four weeks, when there isn’t a daycare around that will take kids that young.

    On a similar note, people who give birth and do not choose to parent (who place their child for adoption) also need time to physically recover from the birth. Make sure they’re covered. Basically realize that “giving birth is a physically stressful situation that needs recovery time” and “newborn babies need someone home to take care of them, and new parents need time to bond” are separate needs, and covering one will not cover the other in all cases.

  157. My 2 cents*

    I love that you and your company are thoughtfully considering this. One way that you can look at this is to see what leave is required by law but is not guaranteed paid time off – for instance FMLA, in Missouri, Domestic Violence Leave, etc. and see how you can make sure there is ample opportunity to either make these paid leave or make sure there is time built into pre-existing leave banks to cover these.

    Consider enriching your medical plan so that certain medications or services are zero copay as long as the member is in compliance – e.g. certain anti-depressants, diabetes medications, etc. There is a company called GoodRx where employers can pay the full cost of certain generics for employees and have the medications mailed directly to them.

    Consider extending some of your time off benefits to your part-time staff on a pro-rated basis if you aren’t already, have them covered by your EAP program, etc. Many who have varied disabilities are unable to work 30+ hours per week, and this would help show that they are valued employees as well.

    Finally, as they say, no good deed goes unpunished, so for every thing you put in place there will be nay-sayers, so take it with a grain of salt. We have 3 days for bereavement leave. We often have to remind people that this is not “leave to fully cope with your grief” it is a way for us to recognize that you will need to deal with certain things when a loved one dies and you are welcome and encouraged to take PTO or unpaid leave depending on your circumstances if you need additional time.

  158. AnonPoster*

    Please check out the free toolkits on outandequal dot org. They have amazing resources that will help you navigate this with assessments, benchmarks, and language.

  159. Gojira*

    I don’t have any benefits to add. I just wanted to say that when it comes to trans health care, make sure you’re asking your openly trans employees – or at least a few trans experts! – about what needs to be included. It can be very hard for cis people to tell what’s actually important (or for one set of trans people to tell what’s important to another). For instance, an employee resource group at an old job had a list of what surgeons did various top surgeries, where they were, and whether or not they were in network for any of our insurance options. That sort of thing would probably be valuable info.

    You might also check whether you have adequate ungendered restrooms. That can make a big difference.

  160. NotAnotherManager!*

    Make sure that anything subject to manager discretion has a double-check or an accessible, private appeals process. I would trust 90% of my colleagues to be supportive and do the right thing, but every pack has someone who’s going to apply their own judgments to someone else’s situation. I intervene if I see anyone who reports to me even getting close to this (and would want their subordinates to feel comfortable coming to me), but I know other people who are more laissez-faire with their managers when they should be intervening to prevent this and ensure uniform and fair application.

  161. Elizabeth*

    This list is a great start. I will add the right to a flexible schedule to the extent possible. This might look like coming in late and staying late on certain days, taking two hours in the middle of the day on a particular schedule or even as needed when possible, working remotely a certain number of days a week, working 4 10s instead of 5 8s, etc. This is especially useful for those with ongoing care responsibilities (i.e. not just when someone is sick, but when you have an elderly parent you have to look after, for example); those struggling to find childcare solutions (who are often but not always women); those looking after their mental and physical health in both emergency ways and preventive ways (therapy, gym classes); those who want to pursue an interest or develop themselves in ways that may or may not be related to work (taking a for-credit class, or taking a cake decorating class). It could be as simple as someone who really hates the commute but shifting their work day by an hour or two makes a huge difference to them.

    In many industries, coverage needs to be maintained in certain areas, but creative thinking and scheduling can allow employees to have a radically different sense of well-being, and to feel like they are trusted and respected.

    Oh, and this should NOT a privilege related to job performance or seniority. If performance is an issue, then it needs to be addressed, but flexibility that is given out as a “reward” tends to breed favoritism and resentment.

  162. ElizabethJane*

    get rid of the 50% match on the 401K and just do 100% on the first 3%.

    If you’re looking for equity you’re only giving the full match to people who are in the financial position to contribute 6%. While it’s likely only $20-30 difference a month, some people are not in the position to do that. The automatic 3% is good but if you’re willing to match the equivalent of an additional 3%, just do that.

  163. OleBaeGoldfish*

    Financial planning and literacy classes! This is something that people might not have a big understanding of depending on their background, but a company paid session with a financial planner is something I got at a previous position and it was life changing early in my carreer.

  164. Elizabeth*

    Also, expense reimbursement policies tend to be highly inequitable for those with poor credit history and/or low cash flow. A corporate card for anyone who is expected to travel so that they can pay for airfare and hotel up front, plus meals and cabs on the road, is really important. Right now I am carrying at least a $500 balance on my personal credit card for flights and conference registrations, and when I get back from my travel and file for reimbursement, it takes 6-8 weeks to see it in my check. This is bananas.

  165. Nelalvai*

    programs that encourage different modes of travel. This could be vouchers for getting a bicycle, a bus pass, a good pair of walking shoes… pair that with on-site facilities (showers, changing rooms, bus stop shelter).

    have a reservable Quiet Room with a couch–this was a huge game changer for managing my disabilities at work. Being able to lie down somewhere quiet changed our return-to-work policy from agonizing to pleasant.

    make sure your healthcare covers out-of-network providers. the best therapist I’ve ever had works for a private queer clinic. I pay for them out of pocket.

    1. Elizabeth*

      The Quiet Room!!! That is amazing and would also have been a game changer for managing my chronic illnesses (I am lucky to have a good solution right now but it is personal to me and I want everyone to have that option…though I do try to offer my couch in a locked office to colleagues with migraines, fatigue, illnesses, etc. So far everyone is too polite to take me up on it, or else they find my cluttered office too stressful to lie down in, lol.). With more and more folks dealing with long COVID, this needs to be a thing that catches on.

  166. Maureen*

    I want to second everyone who added paid parental leave, and add that you should make sure it applies equally to parents of adopted kids as to parents with biological children.

    In terms of benefits for fertility treatments, make sure to read the details of the insurance policies to make sure it doesn’t prioritize heterosexual couples– for example, I recently learned that the insurance provided by a major employer that’s known for being progressive requires “exposure to sperm” while undergoing IVF and IUI, which not only excludes same-sex couples but also single moms.

    I also second everyone who suggested floating holidays so people don’t have to use their PTO to observe religious or cultural holidays.

    And you may already have this, but make sure your insurance also has good coverage for mental health care!

  167. Safe Leave?*

    Last year my employer added ‘Safe Leave’. Up to two weeks paid leave to relocate if you’re moving home as a result of domestic abuse, and unlimited days (not sure if paid, but manager can’t prevent it) for attending appointments like the police, court etc. is that something you can consider? (There is no gender bias in the policy, it’s open to everyone).

  169. Jordan*

    Not sure if this has been mentioned… but people who experience miscarriage or stillbirth should be able to still use to use paternal or maternity leave to recover and heal from the event.

  170. Janeric*

    There’s a real knowledge gap between people with family history of office work and people who do not have those resources — so while it’s more nebulous, I would be clear with HR that taking time to walk people through their options is an important part of their job (and give them staffing to reflect that), and then provide that information to people at all stages of employment.

    A mentorship program could also help with this — so many of the concrete benefits of mentorship that I’ve heard about come down to having someone more deft at navigating the bureaucracy in your corner.

  171. Still Queer, Still Here*

    I have a few ideas!
    1. You mention expanding your fertility benefits to include queer families. How exactly will the health insurance include this? I would STRONGLY suggest that you make sure the plan doesn’t have overly onerous requirements and allows LGBTQ couples to go straight to IVF if they’d like, even if they don’t have a diagnosed fertility issue. If you’re straight, you may not know this: most insurance doesn’t accept the lack of sperm or egg in the relationship as a valid infertility diagnosis. If you don’t have a formal infertility diagnosis, many plans will then require 6-12 cycles of IUIs before couples can move on to IVF. For a queer couple to do that, they’ll have to get donor genetic material for each cycle, which can cost upwards of $1000 per try, plus any costs for the actual IUI procedure, which is often not covered. Also, studies show that IUI only has an 8-20% chance of working, and that if it hasn’t worked within 3-4 cycles, it’s not going to work, and it’s time to move on to IVF. IVF has a 50% success rate. Also, are you going to offer any funds for donor eggs/sperm? What about embryo storage?
    2. Related to the fertility benefits as well, are you going to allow couples to do reciprocal IVF? That’s where an AFAB couple can use the egg from one partner and the uterus from another. It’s a really cool way for both parents to be part of the process. Many insurances don’t cover it because it’s not strictly necessary. My insurance did cover it, and my wife is currently carrying a baby created from my egg. It’s really wonderful to feel like I’m part of this pregnancy even though I’m not carrying, the same way many male partners are!
    3. Parental leave. Do you offer any? Does it differentiate between a maternity and paternity? Do you use gendered terms for it? Does a birthing parent get more time than a non-birthing parent? I advocate for offering the same amount of time for any parent and trusting them to use the time as they see fit. You have no idea how those early days with a new baby will go, so deciding that only birthing parents get the full leave is generally a bad idea.
    4. Bariatric surgery. Are you planning to cover it? Studies show now that for people for whom weight is a health issue (and not all fat people are unhealthy, that must be said), the only proven long-term weight loss solution is surgery. But many insurance plans don’t pay for it because it’s considered elective. It’s not for everyone, but for those that need to lose weight, it can be life-saving. Given the required counseling and testing for the surgery, there’s really no reason not to cover it other than fatphobia.

  172. irene adler*

    What about transportation assistance? I don’t know if getting to work presents hurdles, but one shouldn’t just assume every employee has a car and drives into work.
    Those who use public transportation might value the work schedule flexibility that has them spending a minimum amount of time waiting for said transportation. Or if they hitch a ride from a family member (who is not employed at your company), maybe allow for flex in the schedule to facilitate this.
    If funds permit, set up a transportation service between the company and the closest train stop/bus stop where employees get off the public transit in route to the job.
    Maybe offer reimbursed UBER rides home if those taking public transit work late or otherwise miss their transit connection home.

  173. Pocket Mouse*

    There’s a mention of expanding the adoption benefit to include surrogacy as well… please make sure to add other family law precesses as well. A few states have developed mechanisms to solidify legal parentage outside of these – particularly thinking of same-sex couples who may have previously had to go through second-parent adoption but now have more streamlined options. With these options, it’s still often required or highly advisable to seek legal assistance to ensure the outcome is as ironclad as can be. Guardianship is another family law issue that I’m not as well versed in but would assume involves lawyers and courts extensively as well.

  174. The Tin Man*

    Re: #5 My work does exactly this, and even increases the 3% base contribution by age – so when I hit 35 it changed to 4.5% and will increase additionally after that.

    Re: #6 If it isn’t already, make sure the adoption leave is associated with the placement of a child for adoption or foster care, not the formal, legal adoption. The most critical time is right when a child is placed and legal adoption can be over a year out from an initial placement!

  175. The Bill Murray Disagreement*

    My advice – give even more bereavement leave for loss of a spouse/partner or a child. My company recently upped their bereavement leave for those two types of relationships to a month, and even though it happened after I lost my spouse, it made me really happy that my company understands how uniquely horrific it is to lose a life partner or a child. (I’m not here to play grief olympics about other types of losses; they’re all terrible.)

  176. Caleb (He/They)*

    Ooh, I have some thoughts about some specific things you can do with your trans health coverage (if these things are in your control):

    1) Use the informed consent model, meaning that you don’t require letters from therapists/doctors or X years of being fully out of the closet before you’ll cover things like surgery and HRT

    2) Covering surgeries and HRT are great and you should absolutely do that, but if possible, I really recommend also covering things like vocal coaching and electrolysis—the costs of those can be prohibitive to a lot of people, and they can make a huge difference in alleviating dysphoria. Reimbursement for binders/packers/breast forms would also be amazing

    3) Make sure that your healthcare benefits include some way to take paid leave to recover from surgery—some gender-affirming surgeries will take people out of the office for several weeks while they recover (my spouse’s top surgery was 6 weeks or so), and if people aren’t able to take that time paid, it can stop them from being able to get surgery even if the surgery itself is fully covered

  177. OtherBecky*

    What about a small signing bonus for entry-level positions to help people better afford things like work-appropriate clothes? When I got a job at a major chain bookstore 25 years ago, my parents ended up buying me a somewhat pricey new pair of shoes, because the only ones I had that matched the dress code weren’t shoes I wanted to wear for an 8-hr retail shift.

  178. Mademoiselle Sugarlump*

    Keep older employees in mind. Benefits for comprehensive eye care, computer glasses. Help for people caring for parents. Adaptive equipment for hearing loss, mobility problems.
    I work for an employer who gives great benefits but there’s an older employee group who does advocacy for our needs since they’re often forgotten, next to benefits for young parents.

  179. Salt*

    Fertility treatment coverage! What a great thing. I’d have stayed an extra 2 years at any job just for that alone. I mean if you’re looking to retain people that’s a big one. People treat fert. treatments like it’s a big ‘want’. And while I realize it’s not for everyone, the desire to reproduce is pretty much what drives all species on the planet; Acting like people wanting to reproduce is an extraordinary thing is strange to me. Not all medical issues are life saving, sometimes they’re life altering. If I wanted knee surgery to make not walking with crutches doable it’d be seen acceptable by my insurance.But fert. treatments? that’s just a hobby you have to pay completely out of pocket.

  180. Boopitybop*

    Not sure if this has been said or not, but I’d recommend against a blanket 3 day bereavement for loss of a person/human—a loss of a relative you were not as emotionally close with is a lot different to deal with than a more emotionally immediate person (s.o., guardian/parent, child, etc.), especially if you need to arrange for services, postmortem care, etc.

  181. Minimal Pear*

    I haven’t been able to read all the comments but what about part time people? Do they get some/all of the benefits? I work part time because I’m disabled so that’s a big point of inclusivity. Even if you don’t have part time employees now, do you have plans in place in case you have some in the future?

  182. General Organa*

    This is a great list! I think a paid sabbatical for all employees who have been there X amount of time could be a good addition.

  183. Chocoholic*

    We have a thing called Summer Fun Days at my work. It is 1 additional day off for each of June, July and August which is not counted against vacation or other time off and the intent is just to have a fun day off and enjoy the summer. They are use or lose, and you can’t save them all until August – they have to be taken in the month for which they are assigned. Last year we gave everyone who got a COVID vax an extra summer fun day to be used in September, and this summer we did a “De-Stress Bingo” and once you had a bingo, you could get an extra fun day in Sept. It has been very popular with our staff.

  184. NoodlesNoodlesNoodles*

    Couple thoughts:

    You do not address parental leave in your letter at all (though you do address adoption/surrogacy leave). Not knowing your actual policy, an audit might be nice, since you’re going through all of your benefits anyway.

    Three days strikes me as potentially far too little bereavement time. Bereavement time is often about more than just grief – a close relative passed away very suddenly recently and because she lived in a different state, my family and I had to fly there to handle settling her estate in addition to the funeral. Deaths are logistically difficult as well as emotionally difficult. Not to mention, grief is rarely limited to just three days. I would honestly stay away from hard limits on bereavement time if at all possible.

  185. Amelia*

    This may be more than you company is willing to do immediately, but I think that moving towards robust child and elder care benefits has an enormous impact on employees and is more inclusive of women (since they are often the default caregiver) and of people living in multi-generational households. There’s different models for doing this, here’s a few: https://www.wework.com/ideas/professional-development/management-leadership/employee-child-care-benefits#:~:text=Dependent%20care%20assistance%20programs%2C%20or,up%20to%20%245%2C000%20a%20year.

  186. The One With Opinions*

    Student loan benefit would be even bigger than 401(k) in many ways. Student loans are a huge albatross and I myself consider them a HUGE plus for signing up with a new employer.

    2) Do you have a guide for managers to know when to check up on their employees? And ways for employees to report abuse of this system if a manager starts hasseling them for taking time off? I have known many managers who would be totally awesome with this system, and just as many who would point to it as their excuse for hasseling their reports for every single hour called in.

    3) I would suggest making this benefit 3 days for pets and a week for humans. There’s a reason we call them furbabies after all, and I’m a wreck when one dies–for longer than a single day.

    1. Person from the Resume*

      For diversity and helping the most employees, though, student loan assistance benefit only those with lingering student loans whereas 401(k) benefits everyone.

      1. The One With Opinions*

        True, but if you have any student loans at all, you’ll aim for assistance before 401(k) because not having student loans or having low ones when you finally will be extremely helpful. And most people, unless they’re rich, have not only student loans, but high student loans with them impacting those who are of a minority or not male being affected the most. It makes it really attractive to a very wide group, and it makes the company look more inclusive and diverse. especially eventually.

  187. Dawn*

    From what I’ve read on other comment threads on this site, number one answer on the board is “daycare”

  188. Holidayslippers*

    My job offers a tuition benefit for dependents but only allows it to be used for 4-year degree seeking institutions. I’m requesting that they update their policy to allow the benefit to be used for a wider variety of educational options (certificate programs, transition programs, community colleges etc.).

  189. OneTwoThree*

    These ideas all sound great…and expensive. Are people aware that your benefits are considered part of your total compensation? That’s why so many companies send out annual “Total Compensation” letters that detail the value of all your non-salary benefits, so that you understand how valuable they are. And generally employers look at salaries and fringe benefits as all part of one big compensation pot, so if the benefit pot gets way more generous, it means you might not be getting substantial year over year raises.

    I know there are some issues here with tax treatment (yes, it is totally unfair that employer-based health insurance is tax-free for both the employer and the employee, whereas when you buy it on the ACA it’s after-tax), but as a thought experiment, if your employer offered you every possible generous benefit listed on this page or an annual salary increase of, say, $30K, which would you choose? Sometimes I think people would just be better off with a higher salary and then using that money as they see fit, instead of companies having to micro-manage all of these offerings.

  190. EdConsultant*

    My company provides health insurance for me, my spouse and dependents as long as I work 50% time. This is something I’ve never seen anywhere else, and has been instrumental in keeping me deeply loyal to them. I’ve been able to have stable benefits for the family through three of my husband’s job changes, and I was hired to work only 50% time (perfect for a middle aged mom reentering the workforce after taking about 10 years out to raise kids). The company’s other benefits (retirement, leave, etc.) aren’t anything to write home about, but boy, getting full medical coverage as long as I work 20 hours/week (averaged over the year), is just wonderful.

  191. Quickbeam*

    Late to comment but I wanted to highlight the bereavement issue for people other than primary relatives. I was orphaned at 15 and raised/helped by a large group of caring adults….some neighbors, some aunts and uncles. I was 100% denied bereavement leave when they died. I found that very distressing but it always seemed that hard and fast rules didn’t take my situation into account.

    1. allathian*

      I’m so sorry for your losses. But to be fair, unless the bereavement leave is longer, like a month for a parent/former guardian or spouse, it’s not intended for mourning, but for the logistics surrounding a death.

      Most of my coworkers who’ve lost a loved one have taken a 5-day bereavement leave, either all at once or split over several weeks. Funerals here are typically held within a week or so after a death/autopsy (autopsies are legally required whenever someone doesn’t die in hospital/hospice, and are sometimes performed even then), but when the deceased has opted for cremation, there’s one ceremony for saying goodbye/burning the body, and another for burying the urn/spreading the ashes, often with a month or more between the two.

      We have pretty unlimited sick leave, and anyone who’s unfit to work because they’re mourning can get a medical certificate, so there’s less need for a longer bereavement leave than if you have, say, 10 sick leave days per year.

  192. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

    “1) Expanded Medical Coverage – Providing gender dysphoria coverage through our medical plan for trans individuals.”

    I think the vast majority of employees don’t give a rat’s patootie about trans individuals because it affects a small minority of people. What is of MORE concern = employee premium costs of the medical plan, reduction of deductibles, and expanded coverage. Dental is a good one – for instance, when I worked, a crown costed around $1200. I had to pay half.

    Any time I went to the doctor or even saw a nurse practitioner, I’d have a co-pay of $25 or $40.
    I could afford that, on top of my premium payments of $300 a month. BUT – someone who made LESS than I did, and who had kids, got nailed.

    Most want those out of pocket costs reduced. THAT, to me, should be priority 1.

    1. raktajino*

      I thought employer-based health care plans were priced in part from the usage. If gender-affirming care is covered but nobody uses it, does the plan really cost that much more than a non-inclusive plan?

      I know, insurance companies are awful and will jump on every opportunity to increase costs. But adding flood insurance to my home insurance plan was pennies more per month, while decreasing my deductible was dollars more per month.

      I agree that decreasing out of pocket costs would be a big splashy thing that most people would appreciate. But adding gender-affirming care might be an easy win that is basically separate from efforts to reduce overall costs. It’s not an either or thing.

      1. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

        I would think that it would increase premiums dramatically. Not just for the company, but for the employee. I do not know what the costs are for sex-reassignment surgery. But the insurance company will have to figure that into what you, and your employer pay.

        Ditto to those with “sister wives families”, and those who wish to add an “additional life partner”.

        1. raktajino*

          Do you have any numbers behind that estimate? Genuinely curious because I don’t have experience with insurance from the employer’s side.

          …with your final sentence it sort of sounds like you have some moral or personal boundaries about what you consider to be worthwhile additions to a plan’s coverage. That seems irrelevant to me and to your original assertion. I’d rather hear actual details about how expanding a plan’s coverage would increase costs.

          1. raktajino*

            Two more things.
            1. Don’t healthcare packages cost the employer more if people use them more? Like, that’s why employers want us all to be non-smokers under certain BMIs: it’s cheaper for them if we have fewer problems to bring to the doctor. If the trans benefits would only be used by “a small minority of people” then they wouldn’t be used very often and thus rack up costs/liability for the employer.

            2. Since you’re setting this up as “either they cover trans care OR they reduce premiums”:
            * It sounds like OP’s employer cares about increasing the breadth of coverage. Others have pointed out that this would be most inclusive (and most welcome) if it’s done without passing the increased costs on to the employee.

            * So about those big picture employer level costs. If adding one type of coverage–trans care, mental health coverage, ppo vs hmo–increases costs of the overall package to the __employer__, what is the cost __to the employer__ of decreasing the _employee’s_ premiums or deductibles by X%?

          2. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

            It isn’t a moral or personal boundary. But if I were in a plural marriage, and told my employer that I have three spouses, or claim three domestic partners, and I expect them to be covered, YES, the costs for the plans would go up, because more people = more costs. Higher premiums, which get pushed off to a) all the employees in the plan and b) the company.

            Therefore – here in the United States, AFAIK – “spousal medical coverage” only permits ONE spouse or domestic partner. Yes, same sex relationships are covered.

            And more procedures covered = more money outflow, therefore, more costs. I do not know the cost of gender-reassignment therapy, counseling, and surgery – but it goes without saying that there ARE costs related to it all.

            1. Raktajino*

              Again, I don’t gaf about the polyamory aspect. (But for the record, my employer has the same premiums for a family of 3 as they do for a family of 6.)

              And you said yourself, the costs would mostly go up if people use the benefit. If only a handful of people use the benefit, the cost increases are minor.

              1. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

                Yes, but 3 = one spouse/partner, one kid.

                6 = one spouse/partner, 5 kids. Not five spouse/partners.

                And the move people, the more costs. People WILL use some benefits.

      2. HoundMom*

        It depends — if the plan is self-insured and no one uses the benefit, there is no cost except if the reinsurer raises premiums — but honestly, that is pennies if anything.

        Top and bottom surgery costs about $250,000 each, though the costs can be higher. It adds about 1% to the total insured plan premiums.

        Those are core benefits, but there are a lot of other services that are needed and those costs are far less (apple shaving, electrolysis, facial sculpting, voice therapy).

        2. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

          1% = or more, depending on the number of employees a company has in its insurance pool AND the number of surgeries of this type that they do.

  193. Pocket Mouse*

    Make sure all benefits, including health insurance and at least some sick leave (and ideally also vacation, for pre-planned use) are available for use from day 1 of employment – no waiting period.

  194. Erica*

    Such a great list. A couple items I didn’t see in comments yet (but may have missed):
    -for retirement, offer a Roth option (Roth 401k or Roth 403b) in addition to traditional. This gives ppl more choice and particularly advantages ppl in a lower tax bracket
    -for student loan forgiveness, consider partnering with a non profit that provides counseling, and if you’re a qualifying employer for Public Service Loan Forgiveness ( govt or non profit) provide lots of education for staff and make it easy for them to get their forms certified. We work with The Institute for Student Loan Advisors and they are amazing!

    1. Erica*

      Oh and I forgot – we also work with Living Wage for US which analyzes pay and benefits versus cost of living for where your staff live – a great way to make sure you are offering great benefits and providing a living wage. They also offer certification

  195. the bmi is trash*

    If you offer wellness incentives, do not tie them to BMI, body measurements, or weight. Instead, tie them to size-neutral criteria, like the options a tester, not a developer mentioned above.

    And in that vein, do not hold weight loss challenges or competitions in the workplace, either.

    1. Raktajino*

      And vet any programs you do use!

      My employer’s web-based “health self-care initiatives” one year were awful: you were prompted to give a weight loss goal and “lose 0 lbs” was not an option; if you said you had more than 1 drink a month you were prompted to commit to reducing your alcohol intake. And those were just the more coherent, memorable ones.
      I took screenshots of the more nuanced bs.

  196. raktajino*

    Public transportation benefits, usually like an FSA, often pre-tax contributions by the employee but employer matching/minimum is even better. (You might get federal kickbacks from this as well, if you say something like ‘this is intended to be used to get to work.’)

    This I guess is more an equity issue than an inclusion issue, but hear me out: If a family is a one-car (or no-car) household due to finances or ability (disability or just plain not having a license), then public transit benefits help make that easier. Most transit systems do monthly passes up front and that cost is a huge burden. And if the employee does have regular access to a car, a free or lower-cost monthly pass makes it more appealing to take transit when they can.

    Also there’s the environmental justice angle into inclusivity. Climate change and reduction of emissions and pollution affects all communities but lower income and primarily bipoc communities even more. Anything we can do to reduce car miles, especially systemically, will help those communities.

    1. BookMom*

      Yes! Subsidize or outright purchase transit passes at least up to the monetary value of subsidized parking. When I was a bus commuter, this was requested, and the answer was that some employees had to drive regularly during the day for work so that’s why parking in the ramp next door was subsidized. But…employees who drove but rarely left the office also got subsidized parking.

  197. fort hiss*

    So this isn’t a benefit per se but making access to size-inclusive furniture and ergonomic devices (like keyboards and mice) easy goes a long way to helping disabled/overweight/both people feel included. I had to fight for a plus sized chair and it just sucked.

  198. AccessibilityMatters*

    – a policy to not old meetings or events on major religious holidays of any religion

    – commitment to accessible office space and policies
    (not just wheelchair accessible, but accessible for walkers and visually impaired and hearing impaired and…)

  199. LJ*

    +1 on the suggestions of transit benefits – there might even be incentives from the local government/transit authority since it reduces congestion and pollution

    Insurance – how good is the basic coverage? Can everyone get an eye exam and basic pair of glasses with minimal out-of-pocket expense each year? And regular dental cleanings? Is the company covering a high %/all of the premiums (at least for the employee if not their dependents) for medical insurance?

  200. personwithkids*

    A big one for me is subsidizing family health insurance. A LOT of employers pay for their employees’ insurance and OFFER family insurance, but the family coverage is not subsidized and prohibitively expensive. This means that nobody who requires family insurance will be able to afford to work for you.

  201. DiplomaJill*

    HSA money — enough to cover the entire deductible — on day 1 of the plan year.

    No one meets their $4k deductible $153 at a time ever two weeks, as doled out in biweekly checks (if even covered in full! usually only half is covered: more like $74/check). The quickest I’ve ever met my deductible in full was on day 4 of my plan year. Having all of it ready would have been sick as relief rather than having to come up with all $4k when the bills come and then paying myself back one paycheck at a time.

    1. raktajino*

      I’m pretty sure FSAs–the ones not tied to a high deductible account and the ones that expire every year–have your full amount available on Jan 1st. That’s why you can’t change your contributions midyear, but you can change your HSA contributions. HSAs are the ones that you get if you have an HDHP and they roll over to subsequent years. (I think you’re allowed to have them if you don’t have a high deductible plan, it’s just that then taxes are different.)

      So offering both is handy, because they have slightly different uses.

      1. DiplomaJill*

        you missed my point, which was to give allllllll of the employer provided money up front at once when your plan year starts.

        1. Raktajino*

          Sorry, your comment specified health care benefits so that’s where my mind followed. I’m saying that FSAs already do that and I don’t think HSAs are under employer control like that.
          What other money gets doled out over the course of a year? There’s probably more, but the ones I can think of aren’t medical. Childcare, internet reimbursement, those are all mostly monthly recurring and a lump sum wouldn’t be particularly beneficial like the FSA is.

  202. Middle Name Danger*

    -Pet insurance

    -Coverage for hearing aids and mobility/medical devices

    -Allowing spouses/domestic partners to be on the insurance plan regardless of their job’s benefits! It seems really common now that spouses can only be included if they do not have the option of insurance through their own job, so people wind up paying more for two separate policies and have to navigate two different provider networks.

    -If you switch insurance companies, make it clear what providers might change, or have someone to help people navigate. A few years ago my company switched, and it really messed me up. I have a chronic illness that requires appointments every three months. I had no idea if my January appointment would be covered! The new carrier couldn’t pre-approve me until it actually switched over, and we switched too close to my appointment to give them enough time to approve.

    -Summer Fridays! It’s really common in my industry to let people leave early on Friday during summer months.

  204. Bri*

    Please, PLEASE ensure your medical benefits include substantial prescription coverage. Make sure employees have a way to request support from your company if a medication is being denied coverage by your insurance plan.

    I spent 5 months fighting my insurance company, terrified of losing my job and taking every last ounce of my bosses grace; and it took me crying on a phone call with HR for my (huge, giant) corporation to admit they have a hand in pharmacy drug formularies and they can choose to override a decision if a physician has appealed.

    Don’t put your employees through that.

  205. Bri*

    Also second another above re: Size inclusive furniture. That’s one thing my company does well, but at previous companies I’ve had to go through lengthy request processes (and in one case, a rather embarrassing assessment from our warehouse manager for “necessary chair size”) to get a chair that was sturdy enough. I’m just a tidge over 250, which means most office chairs don’t last as long and aren’t comfortable for me.

  206. nnn*

    Two areas of DEI not mentioned in your examples:

    1. Disability: What do your actual disabled employees actually need? What about employees who have some disability/condition/limitation but don’t have a diagnosis? In an ideal world, you’d also find out about the needs of people who don’t work for you, e.g. because they’re not able to because your workplace doesn’t meet their accommodation needs, but I don’t actually know how you’d go about finding this out.

    2. Money/poverty/class: This can be hard to spot, because it’s very easy to think we know people’s financial status when we know how much money they make, and people can also feel the need to hide socioeconomic differences from their colleagues. But really give good, solid, critical thought to your workplace’s official policies, unofficial practices, and culture. What assumptions are being made? For example, do you have an office full of people who own houses because they were able to get in on the market a decade ago, but salaries haven’t kept up with the bubble and newbies can’t afford nearby housing? Are you assuming everyone has a car? Are you assuming everyone has a spouse/partner in their household who is both able and willing to contribute to income/housekeeping/childcare? Are you assuming everyone has a late-model smartphone and a robust data plan? Are you assuming everyone can pay for business expenses on their credit card and then be reimbursed?

    There’s a huge range of possible variables here and it’s hard to tell which ones might affect your employees, but the answer is likely more than you think. Anything you can do to remove these assumptions and expectations will increase equity.

  207. Liisa*

    I’m guessing someone has already said this but I want to suggest:

    Unlimited sick leave, and don’t require a doctor’s note for anything under a week’s absence. I’ve worked at places that required a doctor’s note for even one day and let’s be real – if I have some 24-hour bug, 1) having to drag my ass to the doctor will make me feel worse, not better 2) there’s usually nothing the doctor can DO in those situations – they aren’t going to be able to prescribe anything that I can’t get OTC, so making people go in just for paperwork is unnecessarily pedantic.

    Also: Find ways to make allowance for chronic illness. This has always been true, and will only be more important as more and more people end up with long covid. Find ways to accommodate people who can only work part-time – but make sure the team is staffed appropriately so you aren’t punishing everyone else! I’m not sure the specifics of this in the US, but also make sure to keep giving people health benefits if they’re working less than 100% time, especially if the reason they need that accommodation is to deal with a chronic health condition.

  208. UK benefits*

    Oh one thing I’ve thought of that a previous company of mine offered that I’d never seen before was access to temporary housing or money for hostel/airbnb for people who were leaving abusive relationships. It was managed I think by a third party so the empoloyer never knew who accessed the fund to protect privacy. The service also then linked people in with charities/services to support those leaving abusive relationships, as well as counselling services (like anger management and other things) for people who were concerned about their behaviour in a relationship.

    1. PinkCandyfloss*

      This is a nice thought but would by nature require disclosure of a pregnancy loss which could be challenging or invasive for some people. Does your company do this? How is it handled with compassion and privacy?

  210. PinkCandyfloss*

    Along with fertility services you might consider offering support for employees who live in locations where termination of pregnancy is at risk, to travel to other states where they can receive the care they need.

  211. Yellow+Flotsam*

    Have good annual leave and permit purchasing leave (so leave at half or quarter pay, buy extra leave each year options).

    I love though that you’re removing company/culturally approved lists of “family” so all staff have access to bereavement and carers leave. I hope this spreads, and your investment in people outside your company will also end up with your own employees being supported.

    I have been very conscious of the fact my employers never considered me worthy of receiving care.

  212. Bromaa*

    I’m sure someone has said this but you’re missing a massive one — parental leave, parental leave, parental leave! Don’t tie it to gender! Don’t tie it to who physically had the baby! I’m *still* annoyed about the fact that I got hosed on parental leave; my partner had the kid, and while my insurance and job were terrific about the fact that a non-woman was carrying I ended up having to take UNPAID “paternal” leave instead of the PAID amount of time I would have gotten if I had been A, giving birth or B, adopting. (I did have to 2nd-child-adopt my own kid — it had nothing to do with my job but ask me about how angry that made me — but that didn’t qualify because kiddo had to live with us for sixth months before I could do that.) And we had what’s considered GOOD parental leave policy!! As a non-gestating parent we could take up to 12 weeks and use personal, sick, and vacation time as compensation instead of being unpaid. Birth parents got 8 weeks paid and could take up to 12 if they were fine with those last four being unpaid or taking up accrued time. Bless them, the benefits did at least refer to “the parent giving birth” and not call these things maternal/paternal leave — but that doesn’t make me feel better about the fact that they were different.

    All of that is nonsense. It’s absolutely appalling we don’t pay for parental leave, or force some people to use their benefits they should be able to use elsewhere. Give ALL new parents the absolute maximum amount of time possible, and pay them during it; as a parent, 12 weeks is now would be what I would consider the absolute minimum. Don’t tie it to anything but “new parent”. Don’t make it unpaid. Don’t make it so that if you have both parents working there they have to combine their parental leaves. Let them each have the X amount of weeks. Yes, even if that means they might both be out X weeks. It’s the literal least you can do.

  213. WonderWoman*

    As a religious minority, having generous PTO enables me to take the time off needed to observe my holidays while also having vacation time leftover (since observing a holiday isn’t the same thing as taking a vacation and may actually be quite a busy and stressful event.) In fact, I would gladly work on Christmas if it meant I could have more days off for the things that matter to me.

  214. Nom*

    Two thoughts: 1) rephrase “gender dysphoria” to include “gender affirming care”. I could be wrong by gender dysphoria sounds to me like mental health only and not things like hormones, endocrinologist visits, transition surgery.
    2) not to sound like Angela from the office but I think 2 days off for death of a pet would be more appropriate. For example, one for vet visit and one for grieving. 3 days off for humans is great, even if it’s not your closest friend, it gives time for travel!

    1. Bromaa*

      “Gender dysphoria” is the diagnosed medical condition that lets you access hormones, surgery, etc., in a lot of places. I do agree that “gender affirming care” is better, but gender dysphoria is not a mental illness.

  215. Nomic*

    Very nice! I would also suggest you have your definition of “family” for insurance include non-married couples if it does not do so already. (There is a brewing fear that gay marriage may soon be outlawed again in the US, and getting ahead of that ball if very important).

  216. EverythingIsInteresting*

    Make sure your 401k is with a firm that only offers investments with ticker symbols that the employee can track themselves. My current plan has “boutique” offerings, and the only way to gauge how successful they are is to take the firm’s word for it or go through a bunch of convoluted calculations. Also, PLEASE go with a low-fee plan that has index funds. Expense ratios for some investments in my plan are almost 2%, which is outrageous.

  217. The_artist_formerly_known_as_Anon-2*

    OH ONE IMPORTANT THING — here in the United States.

    If you are about to turn 65- even if you have insurance/coverage through your employer – you MUST sign up for Medicare Part A. That covers hospitalization. It costs you NOTHING. Your employer’s insurance will then ask you to complete a “coordination of benefits” statement – if you’re hospitalized, Medicare pays part of it then, even if you’re working.

    If you DON’T do this, and wait until you stop working and your employer’s coverage halts – you can sign up then – but — BUT — you will incur Medicare penalties for the rest of your life.

  218. weneedmorebenefits*

    Hearing aids and insulin. They’re expensive and essential and people who need them struggle to find ways to pay for them. Find any way to subsidize that you can.

  219. Anon in Canada*

    -Don’t base vacation entitlement on years of service at the company! In Europe, everyone gets at least 4 weeks of vacation regardless of tenure (5 in some countries). If someone moves to a different province/state and their entire family is far away, only having 2 weeks off isn’t enough, and they don’t have 5 or 10 years to wait to visit their family a good number of times a year. Short of doing that, allow unpaid time off without having to provide a reason (many companies don’t!).

    -Don’t discriminate against unmarried couples! Whether a couple is married or not should not impact benefit eligibility for the partner. Canada understood this decades ago; it’s time for the US to join the 21st (hey, late 20th) century on that. There’s no reason why non-religious couples should “need” to hold a ceremony to officialize their relationship.

  220. xtinerat*

    Make sure any travel policies are inclusive of people with larger bodies, disabilities, or chronic illnesses. Let someone buy two seats if they need to. Pay for checked baggage. Recognize that things like very early or very late flights and tight layovers can be physically or mentally taxing for some people. Don’t assume that “walking distance” is the same for everyone. Give people as much autonomy over their logistics as possible.

    Same goes for corporate events, especially ones that are supposed to be rewarding or team-building.

  221. Higgs Bison*

    One thing I would suggest in addition to making the benefits themselves more inclusive is to take great pains to clearly communicate what the benefits (and their limits) are. I’ve worked at a company that had good and bad examples of this. They have intranet articles, pamphlets, and emails detailing what’s available (which is how I found out that the EAP includes financial advice and other services, not just mental health help).

    At the same time, they botched the communication about a change in PTO policy, saying that our use-it-or-lose-it PTO was all in one bucket and you could use up to X hours for sick leave. What many people interpreted that as was “I can use up to X hours of my PTO for illness, and any that’s left over I’ll take at the end of the year,” but what they meant was “your hr portal shows it all as one bucket but you have to set aside X hours of it for sick leave and cannot use it for planned vacations. No, it won’t tell you how much much you have left of just one category.” That didn’t go so well. More clearly communicating the policy would have reduced frustrated and improved goodwill.

Comments are closed.