Anheuser-Busch, Nestlé Purina PetCare and Monsanto — some of the largest employers in the St. Louis area — are joining a growing list of companies expanding paid time off and other benefits for parents after the birth or adoption of a child.
On Thursday, A-B announced that full-time salaried employees who are new mothers can take 16 weeks of paid time off after the birth of a child — up from eight weeks.
Meanwhile, secondary caregivers, whether male or female, can take up to two weeks of paid leave. In its old policy, a parent who worked for the brewer was given one paid day off when their partner gave birth.
A-B’s vice president, people, Sandro Bassili, said the brewer made the change after listening to feedback from employees.
“The new generation wants to join companies that give back, are flexible and have a good work life balance,” he said. St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch, the U.S. unit of Belgium-based A-B InBev, has 17,000 employees.
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A-B’s new policy follows several other announcements by companies in recent months offering more time for parents to care for and bond with their children: Facebook said in November that it was extending paid leave for new fathers to four months, matching its maternity leave; and Netflix said in August that its employees could take an unlimited amount of time off in the first year after a child’s birth or adoption.
“There’s been a frenzy to compete on the benefit,” said Carl Maertz, professor of management at St. Louis University’s John Cook School of Business. “It’s about competing for talent, whether it’s attraction or retention, and part of that is public relations: to show, ‘We’re the good guys.’ ”
Other companies with a large local workforce are also beginning to expand benefits. Earlier this month, Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America extended its paid maternity and paternity leave to 16 weeks from 12 weeks for its U.S. employees.
Beginning last September, Creve Coeur-based Monsanto increased its paid time off for parents to 20 business days within the first 12 months of a child’s birth or adoption, up from seven days. New mothers can also still take between six and eight weeks of paid time off for disability leave.
At Nestlé Purina PetCare, which is based in downtown St. Louis, parents can take one week of paid leave after the birth or adoption of a child, and the company recently expanded its benefits to also offer paid time off for up to 14 weeks.
Employees who are caregivers can also take up to six months of unpaid leave to care for newborn babies. And, beginning in January, all Nestlé employees were given the option to return to work on a reduced work schedule in the final eight weeks of the caregiver leave period, said spokeswoman Wendy Vlieks.
Companies with more than 50 employees and public agencies must provide eligible workers with up to 12 weeks of time off as part of the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, but they’re not required to pay workers while they’re on FMLA leave.
Most employers don’t offer paid time off after the birth or adoption of a child. Only 12 percent of workers in the private sector had access to paid leave through their employer as of mid-2015, the most recent figure available, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Glenn MacDonald, the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and Strategy at the Olin Business School at Washington University, said the strong job market was making companies compete more aggressively to attract and retain employees.
“Companies can throw a lot of money at people or they can start to modernize their HR policies,” he said.
SLU’s Maertz said the change in benefits would probably continue only with larger companies that can afford it.
“You’re seeing it a lot in the tech and financial sectors because they can afford it,” he said. “If they were hemorrhaging money, they wouldn’t be making these announcements. Smaller companies and those that are struggling are not going to do it.”