What is your non-FMLA required company/nonprofit's family leave policy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Small, private employer. No FMLA or short term disability. We get 5 days of PTO (sick or vacation) per year plus the federal holidays.

This is horrendous. How do they even find employees who will take that?! 5 days of combined sick and vacation?

[Anonymous]

small nonprofit where I was the first one in almost 20 years to have a kid. when i adopted I was allowed a choice of going half time for 12 weeks or having 6 weeks totally off. I could use my sick/vacation time (it's all in one pool) to have paid leave or have unpaid or some combination, but if I didn't use up my paid leave for parental leave I still had to use it up by the end of the year and couldn't take more than a week off at once after the parental leave ended.

When I had other family issues (wife needing surgery, grandmother died) they were accommodating of my need for leave without much notice and it came out of paid leave. We had a coworker who got cancer and they let her work part time and telework.

One thing that's annoying is we can't take a half day or other fraction for leave. We either need to make it up in the same pay period or take a full day off. No big deal for a dentist appointment but for something that takes 4 hours I sometimes wish I could not have to make it up and just split a leave day in half.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had to write my own and then negotiate. Got six weeks paid and a gradual phase in back to full time, splitting my full time hours to have more work from home than before.

How did you make the case for this? (especially the 6 weeks paid part) I'm assuming you were able to point to some examples from other places?

I cited progressive state and national policies in other regions. My employer paid slightly under market and had some retention problems, even though everyone who has worked there loved the mission. I made the case about improving retention and also have a detailed personal plan about what work I would do ahead of time and after the leave the make it worth their while. I also had an eager and willing deputy back me up and help shoulder the work. I returned that favor a couple years later when that person had a baby.

Good luck!