Three Boston companies among the best places to work for new dads in 2016
According to Fatherly, a parenting resource for men.
When it comes to having progressive parental leave programs, some companies are light-years ahead of others, offering new fathers extensive paid time off and flexible working arrangements.
According to Fatherly, an online parenting resource for men, three such companies are located in Greater Boston.
Fatherly released its annual ranking of the 50 best places to work for new dads, and found that Bain & Company, State Street, and Akamai all provide new dads with some of the most paid time off in the country.
To develop the list, Fatherly worked with human resources departments from over 100 businesses with 1,000 employees or more to identify industry leaders in paid leave for new fathers, corporate flex-time policies, corporate childcare policies, and other company benefits that explicitly add to family well-being and overall work-life balance.
While the most heavily weighted criteria was the length of paid leave provided to fathers, other considerations included whether the company distinguishes between men and women in terms of primary caregiver, as well as the gap in leave provided to primary and secondary caregivers.
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Boston-based management consulting firm Bain & Company came in at No. 19, offering new fathers eight weeks of paid leave, while Cambridge-based Akamai, a global manager of Internet traffic, ranked No. 30 for its four weeks of paid leave.
Meanwhile, State Street was ranked No. 36. The financial services company boasts four weeks of paternity leave that don’t have to be used consecutively. So, as Fatherly said, “once you realize your new kid has no idea who you are after Week 1, you can get some work done and then get back to paternity leave around Month 3, when they start actually being fun.”
State Street also takes flex time very seriously.
Fatherly writes:
Its Manager Initiated Flex program requires your boss to approach you about flexible work options, so you don’t have to worry about their response when you ask. Your boss will even be trained to identify which parts of your job best lend themselves to flextime, telework, compressed schedules, or job sharing so you can organize yourself accordingly.
Employees at companies without these benefits need not despair; many organizations are catching up quickly.
Fatherly pointed out that when its first ranking debuted last year, nearly half the companies featured offered between one and two weeks of paid leave to fathers. This year, that number jumped to an average of 7.5 weeks, with 35 percent of companies offering between six and eight weeks, and another 12 companies offering between 10 weeks and a full year.
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