Why Our Marketing Agency Offers Paid Maternity (And Paternity) Leave

Why Our Marketing Agency Offers Paid Maternity (And Paternity) Leave

Maternity and paternity leave are on a lot of people’s minds recently, and not just HR nerds like me.

Many observers have praised Netflix’s recent announcement of a generous new parental leave policy. However, this announcement has also triggered a considerable backlash among people who don’t think maternity and paternity leave offer companies any value.  These critics, unfortunately, are overlooking the importance of employee happiness for successful businesses.  

At Square 2 Marketing, we’ve found that making our employees happy leads to better results for our clients.  As Director of Team Member Happiness, my job is to foster a caring, supportive work culture and facilitate the benefits that help us minimize our employees’ stress. That’s why we offer our employees paid maternity and paternity leave.

Family Medical Leave Act’s Parental Leave Requirements

Technically, we don’t have to offer our employees any parental leave, paid or unpaid.

The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requires that private employers with 50 or more employees within 75 miles of the business must allow employees who have worked at their company for one year or more to take 12 weeks of unpaid leave after the birth or adoption of a child. While Square 2 Marketing does have over 50 employees, many of them work remotely and don’t live within 75 miles of our main office.

This would exempt us from offering any maternity or paternity leave at all. But, only offering our employees what’s legally required isn’t going to motivate them to do the kind of remarkable work that helps drive our company toward our goal of generating one million leads for our clients.

Our Paternity And Maternity Leave Policy

At Square 2 Marketing, we offer all of our employees, men and women, the same parental leave benefits:

  • One month paid leave plus two months unpaid leave
  • The option to reduce workload to 32 hours per week at 80% salary for the first six weeks upon return from leave
  • The ability to split the leave into different portions of time (this is especially helpful for young parents looking to coordinate their leave with another parent)

We also offer a few additional confidential perks to help our employees get started on their parenting journey.

Generous Maternity And Paternity Leave Helps Us Attract Talent

When it comes to recruiting, we don’t let anything stand in the way of attracting the best talent to our marketing agency.

By offering paid parental leave to both women and men, we’re ahead of at least 88% of companies our size. According to the Society for Human Resources Management, only “12% of U.S. employers with fewer than 100 workers offer paid maternity leave” and many of those companies only offer the paid benefits to women.

By offering better benefits than other companies our size, we’re able to hire the best and the brightest talent, which helps us deliver remarkable outcomes for our clients.

Paid Maternity Leave Helps Us Foster Employee Engagement

Paid maternity leave (and paid paternity leave, too) also helps us remove a lot of external stress from our employees. While the impending birth of a new child is a joyous occasion, it may also cause a great deal of unease.

Without a paid maternity leave policy, female employees would have to worry about arranging to go on long- or short-term disability at a reduced salary just to be able to spend time with their new son or daughter. Our male employees wouldn’t even have the disability option. They’d have to choose between either not getting to spend time with their new child or going without income altogether.

Not only would this make our employees unhappy and possibly less satisfied with our work environment, but it would also distract them. Instead of focusing on developing the kinds of remarkable content and strategies that deliver our clients leads, they’d be overcome with anxiety about the birth of their child.

Employee Benefits Lead To Employee Happiness

When we combine our paternity and maternity leave policy with our flexible work environment, our unlimited vacation policy and our work from home policy,  we create a culture that allows our employees to take care of themselves and their families as they need to. This makes our employees happy, which in turn helps them deliver the best results possible for our marketing agency and our clients.

By taking care of our employees, we put our company in a position to grow, exceed our goals and become the best inbound marketing agency.

Looking for a new opportunity with a fast-growing company that’s dedicated to employee happiness? Check out the current openings at Square 2 Marketing

 

Thank you, Natalie Davis! I'm glad I could help.

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Natalie Maher

Creating workplaces that people love.

8y

Great article, and very timely for us. We're developing a maternity/paternity leave policy currently, and I love learning about what other agencies are doing.

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Kelly Barrios, MAOL, LSSGB

Masters in Organizational Leadership Graduate | Lean Six Sigma - Green Belt | Healthcare Operations | Program Mgmt

8y

Really smart paternity and maternity leave policy to keep top talent. More companies should follow in Square 2 Marketing's footsteps.

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Jeremy Knight

Founder & MD at Equinet Media | Elevating Contract Manufacturers through Innovative Growth Marketing & Branding

8y

Whilst I absolutely applaud this, I thought I would share that here in the UK, for someone on a salary of around $38k the employer would have to pay around $11k in maternity pay - no choice in it!

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Saj Hoffman-Hussain

Founder @ simplcontent.com | Senior Manager, Content Strategy @ Publicis Sapient | Looking for Content Director, Head of Content, Content Lead Roles

8y

Please can I come work for you? Legend! :)

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