Employment Law Optimism to start your week.
Last week was not the best week for employees but, nevertheless, we were able to cobble together at least some good (or at least interesting) news to share with you.
–New York parents started advocating for higher wages for their children’s daycare workers. Anyone who has spent any time caring for groups of small children would agree.
–Last April, Etsy adopted a new gender-neutral paid leave policy, which allows employees to take 26 weeks of paid leave, spread out over 2 years. The policy was designed to combat the biases that occurred for working mothers and stay-at-home fathers. Some early results of this change in policy are in and guess what: the policy is working great! Of the employees who have taken advantage of this new policy, 50% are women and 50% are men. The company has also reported that this policy did not seem to negatively impact the career trajectories of those who took time off and noted that 35 percent of the employees who took advantage of the policy have been promoted either during or afterward. Employers take note: employee loyalty grows when you offer programs like this.
–In order to improve work-life balance for employees, Japan has asked employers to offer “Premium Fridays,” allowing certain workers to leave at 3pm on the last Friday of every month. This comes after Japanese employees have been in the news lately for working themselves to death. Kudos to the country for at least trying to do something to make things better.
–Lastly, in unusual news, a Swedish politician recently proposed that workers be given one hour of paid leave to go home and be intimate with their partners. Oh, Sweden!
Do you know of any Good Things or encouraging news for employees? If so, please comment or email us directly so it can be included in next week’s post!
