Forum discussion

WFH & Family Leave Policies Share

In the wake of pandemic WFH requirements, we are looking to revamp employee policies and I thought this type of information share would be something we Green Gurus would love to thought-share on. 

We are a very 'low-policy company' (20 when I joined, now 75 employees currently) and our employee handbook is quite small (5 pages). Most employees that work from home do so as negotiated on a per-person basis, but it's time we had something more formalized put in place. Also something for parental leave - as a woman at an engineering company - and also the first full-time staff to ever need to navigate parental leave - I'm piggybacking that in here too. 

So... in the spirit of sharing and the peer network safe space, I'm curious:

  1. What is your company policy currently for these two avenues? 
  2. What do you wish your company policies were? 

For reference, ILFI's JUST 2.0 indicator for "Family/Medical Leave" lists Flexible Work Arrangements as a Level Two metric with template policy language as follows (that uses the fun term 'telecommuting' which maybe we should update to 'zoommuting'): 

[Organization Name] provides up to X weeks of paid leave for any employee welcoming a child through birth, adoption, or foster placement or dealing with a serious health condition of their own or that of a family member. A serious health condition is one requiring either inpatient care or continuing treatment by a health care provider. We define a family member to be parents, spouses, domestic partners, children, grandparents, siblings, in-laws and parents of domestic partners. While on leave, employees are paid Y percent of their normal salaries. This leave policy applies equitably to all employees (salaried, hourly, full-time, part-time, and contractors). 
 
In order to support work/life balance and the needs of families, [Organization Name] will provide the following flexible work arrangements if they can be accommodated without detriment to the employee, team, department or organization: 
 
• Condensed work weeks (e.g. four 10-hour work days) 
• Customized working hours (e.g. 7am to 3pm work day) 
• Telecommuting (e.g. employees work one or two days a week from home) 
• Job Sharing (e.g. two employees share a full-time role) 

For additional reference on the JUST Indicator Metrics: 

Level ONE - 

  1. Organization has a written policy on family and medical leave.

Level TWO - 

  1. Organization has a written policy on family and medical leave.
  2. Organization provides up to 6 weeks of paid leave for any employee welcoming a child through birth, adoption or foster placement or dealing with a serious health condition of their own or a loved one. 
  3. Flexible Work Arrangements: Organization allows positive (employee-requested) scheduled work fextime (non-standard hours).

Level THREE - 

  1. Organization has a written policy on family and medical leave.
  2. Organization provides up to 12 weeks of paid leave for any employee welcoming a child through birth, adoption or foster placement or dealing with a serious health condition of their own or a loved one. 
  3. Flexible Work Arrangements: Organization allows positive (employee-requested) scheduled work fextime (non-standard hours), allows for negotiated compressed workweek.

Level FOUR - 

  1. Organization has a written policy on family and medical leave.
  2. Organization provides up to 24 weeks of full paid leave for any employee welcoming a child through birth, adoption, or foster placement or dealing with a serious health condition of their own or that of a loved one. Organization has implemented a Parental Leave Transition Program that addresses all three phases (1. preparing for leave, 2. during leave, and 3. returning from leave).
  3. Flexible Work Arrangements: Organization allows positive (employee-requested) scheduled work fextime (non-standard hours), allows for negotiated compressed workweek as well as negotiated telecommuting (working at home).
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Wed, 01/05/2022 - 18:52

To answer my own questions for anyone curious: 
  1. None.
  2. I think WFH 2 days a week seems pretty standard as a hybrid situation, so that's what I'm thinking. Could be a combination of the four bullet points from JUST language. And my draft Family / Medical Leave Policy includes up to 12 weeks of paid leave for any employee who is the primary caregiver for a new child (birth, adoption or foster) or a family member (parent, spouse, domestic partner, child, sibling, and parents of domestic partner) who requires inpatient care of continuing treatement for a serious health condition. Pay is 60% of normal salary and applies to all salary and hourly full time employees). There's also an eligibility stipulation regarding using short-term disability if applicable, which is to be applied as an offet (not addition) to the 12 week timeline. 

Wed, 01/05/2022 - 22:01

Sarah I think you are spot-on to look at JUST 2.0.  We are a JUST firm.  We did 1.0 in 2016, reupped under 1.0 in 2018, and then did an upgrade to 2.0 when we "recertified" in 2020.  As a matter of fact, just this morning, I started the process of gearing up for our next recert. One of the great things about JUST is the transparency.  For each JUST labeled firm, there is a dropbox folder with their policies.  For instance, ours is here:  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/r753iq137azlfwm/AAC4JmgtPaFsPmDuFJKUIsJqa?dl=0.  We are a Level One on Family / Medical Leave because our policy doesn't fit into one of the JUST boxes.  I won't go into the messy details of our policy, but you can download it off that dropbox link. Our WFH policy is equally messy.  I think it was devised by a dyslexic abacus operator.  We have 5 day, 4.5 day and 4 day work week options.  Without getting way down in the weeds, it's WFH 3 days a week.  If anyone really wants to see the sausage before we crammed it into the casing, just let me know.

Wed, 01/05/2022 - 22:39

I've been thinking that JUST is really something that we need to be looking at continuously - we've made many tweaks and improvements to our policies based on JUST criteria; it's really a great program to force your firm to look in the mirror and be held to an outside standard.
We're Level 2 for family leave; while I'm not very familiar with the ins and outs of it, I don't think we do a lot more than Oregon law requires. Our dropbox is here: Dropbox - Documentation - Simplify your life
We are still basically 100% flexible in our WFH situation. You can work fully in the office or fully at home if you like. We have started talking about moving to something more structured when Omicron fades away (PLEASE PLEASE). Perhaps mandatory in-office 10-3 M/W/F, or something like that. Just trying to get people in the same space to aid in communication and strengthening design teams. We'll see. It's a long way off still. 

Thu, 01/06/2022 - 00:59

My firm is about 400 employees in six loations in two states.  We have folks at very different stages of their lives and careers.  We received the JUST label about a year ago and we are level 2 for "Family/Medical Leave" and we provide 6 weeks of paid family leave, including for maternity. We strive to be very flexible with new parents (particularly moms).  Many of our key leaders including our CEO spent some time in their careers taking time off and/or working reduced/flexible hours due to child care.   But every person and every family situation is a little different so we strive to develop a sensible work plan on a case by case basis.  One of my top managers worked 32 hours/week about half from home for a decade preceding the pandemic. . .  she gave us all great tips on how to make work from home successful. We have been in a hybrid, scattershot "work from home or work from the office as you see fit" mode for the last six months and it has not been great for anyone.  We intend to move to Tue/Wed/Thur as the expected / default days in the office (just don't call it "mandatory") although that plan has been delayed by the current COVID surge.    Our biggest concern is that a lot of informal mentoring and relationship building has been lost with everyone working remotely and that is a long term problem, especially for younger staff.

Thu, 01/06/2022 - 12:04

Thanks to those of you who have replied so far! AND - since I can't edit my OP - I wanted to add an option for confidential survey, if people aren't comfortable sharing with the forum here, or with me personally (both of which I totally understand!)

Would appreciate your input in any capacity. Thanks Gurus! CONFIDENTIAL SURVEY LINK HERE: https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/6683471/Benefits-Survey I will of course share the results with the group. Thanks for considering! 

Thu, 01/06/2022 - 14:05

The survey is a brilliant idea to help us help you! Below are a few details that I thought might be of interest, including how our organization provides paid leave.  The state of Massachusetts has some newer, specific requirements for paid family and medical leave.  To meet the requirement for 12-weeks paid parental/ family leave, the office pays for the first week and the remaining 11 weeks are paid through a third-party managed plan. The monthly premium for the plan is split between the office and all the staff (a percentage of salary, on average it's a couple of dollars per paycheck).  The plan also includes 20-weeks of paid medical leave and up to 26 weeks of combined paid leave annually. 
  Additionally, The Boston Society of Architects (BSA/ MA AIA) has a public policy disclosure resource to assist with exactly this locally - communal sharing to help each other (and raise the bar)! The examples are from firms of various sizes (small to large) and all appear to be firms with a single office location:
    https://www.architects.org/firm-examples-of-edi-policies-and-procedures 
Most participating firms are Just Organizations and all are architects.  This has to be the craziest landscape for a policy rate of change in recent history! We are currently revisiting our flexible work policy. Some of PCA's policies on the BSA site are out of date and we will provide the current documents once they stick long enough to put in writing. It's possible we are not alone in this.

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