It's a family affair

Companies are recognizing employees’ needs for help at home

WHEN her labor started early, Sarah Cusick called her manager to let him know. “I was expected at his wedding the next day, so first I told him that I wouldn’t be there, then I said I wouldn’t make it back to the office either,” says the 40-year-old Brooklyn resident, who had yet to finish handing over her work to co-workers before her maternity leave.

She still remembers her boss’ reply. “No worries,” he said. “We’ll see you in six months.”

That’s how much parental leave Cusick’s employer, Brooklyn-based Etsy, offers to its 874 employees, regardless of gender. The eCommerce site that connects makers of handcrafted goods with consumers also offers up to 12 weeks of paid leave to employees who need to care for a close relative with a serious health condition, or to assist loved ones when a family member is deployed abroad for military service.

While Etsy may be at the forefront of providing support to workers through various life stages, it is not alone. Progressive employers all over the New York area — ranging from large companies like American Express and Johnson & Johnson, to startups like sock-maker Bombas and recruiting software purveyor Greenhouse, both in the Flatiron district — are upgrading their employee benefits portfolios to support employees and the families they care for.

While longer periods of paid parental and family leave are becoming mandated by some states (like New Jersey and New York), some employers are offering the option to go back to work before the paid period ends to retrieve a cash payout instead.

“There is a war for talent and, in a tight labor market, companies have to offer attractive benefits to attract and retain workers or risk them

being poached,” says Liz Supinski, director of data science at the Society for Human Resource Management.

Alison Sullivan, community expert at recruiting firm Glassdoor notes that “many workers look for companies, where they can bring their whole selves to work, and by offering these [new kinds of] benefits, companies signal they want to support employees not only in their career, but outside of work, too.”

Alex Cohen, associate director of corporate sales at Bombas, can speak to that: “Everyone at the office knows I am a father, and they know my kids,” says the 40-year-old Westport, Conn., resident, adding that some of his co-workers have even baby-sat for his family. Cohen was also able to stagger his 16 weeks of paid parental leave throughout the year, two weeks of which included a family trip to Japan.

But it’s not only children who need care. Employers are now doing more to assist workers with aging parents, says Supinski, noting that “eldercare is a lot harder to find than child care.”

When it comes to family members with special needs, help can be even harder to find, but the best employers are stepping up to help. Companies like Hearst, News Corp (which owns the New York Post), Salesforce and Varick, among others, now offer company-paid assistance to employees who care for loved ones with complex, chronic and ongoing needs from dementia, cancer, autism and other issues. They are offering this via access to Wellthy, a Web site that helps families with arranging and scheduling appointments, refilling prescriptions, getting pre-authorizations, sourcing and vetting home health aides, contesting insurance bills and more. “Handling these things can be stressful, time-consuming and overwhelming,” says Lindsay Jurist-Rosner, CEO of Wellthy, noting that it can also eat into your health, happiness and productivity at work.

Professionals who have stepped out of the workforce for long periods of time to raise and care for families often have trouble re-entering, and that’s another area where companies are starting to step up. While a few companysponsored on-ramping programs have existed for years, they are finally becoming more common, with employers such as American Express, Barclays and Dow Jones offering “returnships” — active initiatives designed specifically to help work-returners apply their life experiences and update their capabilities in a way that makes them highly desirable as employees.

Linda Piper, 62, is one of the beneficiaries. Although she was able to find small jobs unrelated to her profession while she was raising her family, even after her kids went off to college, Piper couldn’t find a way back into the information technology career she had left behind years earlier. That is until she discovered Johnson & Johnson’s Re-Ignite program, a 4-month program specifically designed to help science, technology, engineering, manufacturing and design (STEM2D) professionals transition back into the workplace.

“My kids are so proud of me for being able to be part of this program,” says Piper, noting that getting to this point was difficult, even though she had graduated from college magna cum laude and had a strong track record of professional success before dedicating herself solely to motherhood. “My kids have seen me struggle to get to this point,” she adds.

Liz Markus, director of the program, says that people who chose to step away from their careers because it was right for their families shouldn’t have such an uphill battle.

“My husband is a stay-at-home dad, and when he’s ready to get back to work, I want programs like this to be here,” she says.