Plus, the repercussions of losing top talent “ripples through your organization,” Sias explained. For example, reports that 43% of new hires quit due to unmet expectations generally, costing 30% of recruiting time and resources. Offering generous paid leave could help them think twice about leaving before they do. “Paid leave would allow small businesses to compete with larger companies that have the resources to provide such a benefit while taking care of their employees,” John Arensmeyer, SBM founder and CEO, wrote to the Department of Labor in September.īut until such a policy is in place, what can tech firms and small businesses do to address their disadvantage in paid leave, so they can attract and retain top tech talent? Here are six suggestions from long-time human resources professionals and small business leaders who have been navigating this minefield:ĭo a cost-benefit analysis. Providing a paid leave benefit can be expensive, but so can not providing it. Another survey in October of 600 small business owners found widespread bipartisan support for a national public policy. SBM’s polling found that 70% of small businesses support a national policy. That’s a big reason why a coalition of small businesses in the United States, led by organizations like the Small Business Majority and Main Street Alliance, have been calling for a national public paid leave policy to help them compete for talent with bigger firms. “They want to take care of their people.” “But many small employers view their employees as family,” says Katie Vlietstra Wonnenberg, a principal with public policy firm Public Private Strategies.

The Department of Labor reports that just 15% of companies with 99 or fewer employees have access to employer-provided paid leave, compared to nearly one-third of workers at large companies. When Google expanded its paid parental leave policy from 12 to 18 weeks in 2007, the retention rate of women post-maternity leave increased by 50%, as Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube, a Google subsidiary, explained in a 2016 speech to the Anita Borg Institute’s Grace Hopper Conference.īut many small firms, especially cash-strapped tech start-ups, often don’t have the resources to offer paid leave. Paid leave can increase retention, too, especially for women and diverse talent. Jaime Klein, founder and CEO of Inspire HR, calls it “the Google effect”: “Facebook, Google, they’ve started doing these longer paid leaves, and in an effort to track with them, organizations, no matter their size, no matter their industry, the best-places-to-work type organizations, the ones that have a real focus on talent, have tried to extend their paid leave as well.” One of her female engineer candidates with multiple offers told Klein she specifically chose the company with the most generous paid leave. Half said they’d rather have more paid leave than a pay raise. A 2016 Deloitte survey found 77% of employees said that whether a firm offered paid leave - and the length of it - had some bearing on where they chose to work. Research has found that paid leave policies can help employers recruit top talent, especially in the highly competitive tech sector. Though the firm she was recruiting for didn’t offer paid leave, the firm is located in Washington, DC, one of a handful of states and local jurisdictions that have a public paid leave policy. “It was extraordinarily important to these men that they have this benefit,” Call said. Marcia Call, a recruiter with TalentFront who specializes in small businesses, said paid leave was a make-or-break issue in two recent cases, both men.

Men are increasingly bringing it up, too. “Millennials brought up right off the bat,” she said. In a previous position, with a large firm, she said the paid leave policy often sealed the deal, especially for women and younger candidates. “I’ve had people turn me down because of the paid leave,” said Patricia Sias, head of HR at a small STEM firm that does not offer paid family leave.

Yet some recruiters and executives at small firms, especially tech start-ups, say that providing paid leave to employees - or living in a state with a public paid leave program - is increasingly making the difference in recruiting and retaining top talent, especially as the Covid-19 pandemic strains families to the breaking point. Just 21% of the civilian workforce, typically white collar workers at larger firms, have access to employer-provided paid leave. firms to decide whether to provide paid leave to their employees who need time to care for themselves, new children, or loved ones. The United States is the only industrialized country without a national paid maternity leave policy, and one of six OECD countries without paid leave for fathers.