Paid Paternal Leave

To help employees balance the demands of their work and family lives, employers often implement paid parental leave policies. Generally, a paid parental leave policy allows an employee to take paid time off to bond with a newborn child or a child who has been recently adopted or placed in the employee’s home for foster care.

This type of policy might be good if it provides employees with a greater amount of leave time than a separate FMLA policy would typically provide, especially if an employer is not required to provide such leave.  Such a policy should establish that child-bonding entitlements will be equally available to employees regardless of gender.

Further, having a separate paid parental leave policy allows employers to offer different benefits to birth mothers for medical reasons than if such benefits were included in an FMLA policy.

Use this template to create a paid parental leave policy.