Employers starting to improve family leave

Companies like Facebook have spent the last few years beefing up their parental- leave policies to attract and retain the most sought- after workers. Now they’re looking at new ways to help them balance work and life.

Up next in the benefits arms race: helping workers deal with sickness and death.

With its latest update to its paid- leave policy, Facebook has upgraded employee benefits dealing with illness and death in the family — rare but increasingly sought- after offerings, especially as millennials, now the largest share of the workforce, begin caring for their aging boomer parents.

In the past year, Deloitte and the Vanguard Group both started giving workers paid time off to care for sick relatives.

And Facebook now offers employees six weeks of paid time off to spend time with a family member who has a long-term illness. ( They also get three paid days off to deal with a family member’s short- term illness, such as a kid home with the flu.)

The company has also expanded its bereavement leave — up to 20 days from 10.

“This expands the concept of what it is whole people need, what kinds of private issues they bring with them to work, and how to make space for that,” says Ellen Bravo, the co- executive director of Family Values @ Work, an organization that pushes for familyfriendly workplace policies.

Raising a newborn isn’t the only reason an employee might need time off work. It takes time and emotional energy to care for someone with a terminal illness or recovering from a serious health scare.

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg points to her own experience to underscore the need for generous leave policies.

After her husband died suddenly in 2015, the company, she wrote in a Facebook post accompanying the announcement, gave her the flexibility she needed to grieve and care for her children.

“I know how rare that is, and I believe strongly that it shouldn’t be,” she wrote. “People should be able both to work and be there for their families. No one should face this trade-off.”

Few companies offer paid time off for anyone other than new parents. Only 13 per cent of private- sector workers have access to paid family leave, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Fa mil y Medical Leave Act guarantees eligible workers 12 weeks off “to care for an immediate family member( spouse, child, or parent) with a serious health condition” — but it’s unpaid. Just two per cent of companies subsidize family medical leave, the 2016 benefits report by the Society for Human Resource Management found.