We recently celebrated Mother’s Day on May 12 and Father’s Day is just around the corner on June 15. In between these two Hallmark holidays and in the midst of Pride Month, Citi just announced its new “Enhanced Parental Leave” and “Caregiver Leave” policies, designed to support working parents, regardless of their path to parenthood.

With the Enhanced Parental Leave program, Citi is giving all employees who are new parents 16 weeks of paid parental leave and offers an additional 8 weeks of paid leave for birthing mothers. Recently, several other financial institutions have leveled up their parental leave programs including Goldman Sachs who gives its employees 20 weeks of leave and JP Morgan who gives 16 weeks of leave to parents. Wells Fargo similarly designed a plan where the primary caregiver for a family gets 16 weeks of paid leave and the secondary caregiver will receive 8 weeks. (I have my own opinions about designating parents as either primary or secondary caregiver, but this this not the platform for that discussion).

With its Caregiver Leave policy, Citi is also allowing employees to receive 2 weeks of paid leave to care for a family member. Although it will further lend support to working parents, the policy is not limited to providing care for a child and is broad to allow for the individual to receive paid time off while caring for any immediate family member including an elderly parent, spouse, or sibling.

From their recent developments of supportive parental leave plans, it is clear that these organizations recognize that by offering benefits that reflect recent shifts in societal views companies will not only be able to offer better support for working parents but also create benefits that attract and retain top talent.  If you want help in creating policies which support your employee’s family health, reach out to RKW to assist.

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