State:
August 23, 2016
California ahead of the curve on paid family leave, SHRM says

Employers in California are ahead of the national average when it comes to paid family leave policies, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Nationwide, 18% of employers offer that benefit; in California, 35% of employers do, according to state survey results released July 27.

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Family leave surveyIn the organization’s national benefits survey, released earlier this year, employers’ definitions of “family leave” varied. Many employers offered a combined family leave bank for maternity leave, paternity leave, adoption leave, foster child leave, and leave to care for an immediate family member as defined by the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Others included surrogacy leave and leave to care for an extended family member beyond the FMLA’s definition.

The state survey also found that employers in California are more likely to offer stand-alone paid sick leave, vacation, maternity, paternity, and adoption banks. It’s hard to tell exactly where California stands, however, because the popularity of these stand-alone benefits means that employers in California are less likely to offer combined paid time off (PTO) programs. Nationwide, 51% of employers offer a combined bank of paid sick leave, vacation and personal time. In California, only 38% of employers offer that benefit.

“We found that stand-alone PTO plans are more common in California compared with overall U.S. companies,” said Evren Esen, director of workforce analytics at SHRM, in a press release. “California has multiple leave laws at the state and local level that makes it unique compared with other parts of the U.S.”

Among the different types of paid leave that California employers were less likely to offer were time off for volunteer work, and military, and jury duty leaves beyond what is required by law.

SHRM said the California survey was conducted during January and February and polled 385 randomly selected SHRM members in the state. The nationwide data came from its annual benefits survey.

Kate TornoneKate McGovern Tornone is an editor at BLR. She has almost 10 years’ experience covering a variety of employment law topics and currently writes for HR.ComplianceExpert.com and HR.BLR.com. Before coming to BLR, she served as editor of Thompson Information Services’ ADA and FLSA publications, co-authored the Guide to the ADA Amendments Act, and published several special reports. She graduated from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., with a B.A. in media studies.

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