POPSUGAR

Ikea's Awesome Paid Leave For Parents Is More Swedish Than American

Mar 7 2017 - 1:50pm

In an effort to attract and retain excellent employees, Ikea's American offices are taking a hint from the company's home country of Sweden by implementing a truly awesome paid family leave policy [1]. In addition to offering paid leave for both female and male workers who are having children, the policy also applies equally to salaried and hourly employees — a move that is most unusual in the United States.

Starting Jan. 1, 2017:

Previously, Ikea's parental leave policy in the US [2] was five days of paid leave for new parents and up to eight weeks of paid disability leave for new moms. This new policy improves upon the old one and is incredibly generous in comparison to most American companies, as the United States continues to be the only industrialized nation to not guarantee paid leave [3] for mothers (much less fathers).

Some US companies are greatly expanding their family leave [4] policies — but most are only eligible to top-tier employees. Ikea's new efforts to offer benefits to both salaried and hourly employees — regardless of their tenure at the company — is unique and awesome, and it will hopefully motivate other companies to do the same in order to stay competitive.

Although this is a boon for American Ikea workers, it remains a far cry from the leave policy in Sweden, where the government subsidizes workers' time off and parents enjoy 68 weeks of paid time off. Still, this news is a sign of progress, even if it needs to be taken in actual baby steps.


Source URL
https://www.popsugar.com/money/Ikea-Offers-Amazing-Paid-Leave-Parents-42810243