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Starting Now At Netflix: Unlimited Maternity and Paternity Leave
vivaoporto writes: Netflix announced Tuesday that, during the first year after their child's birth or adoption, employees will be able to take off however long they feel they need to. They can return on a full- or part-time basis, and even take subsequent time off later in the year if needed. Netflix will "keep paying them normally." Time comments that Netflix's policy "deserves high marks for extending leave to fathers, as well as understanding that the entire first year after childbirth can be challenging for new parents".
It's not really unlimited if it's limited to a year now is it. Bad title. Commendable policy though, much better than what many places offer.
I see this can be efficient and useful inside a company with mainly highly-educated workers, with stringent admission standards. But would such a thing work in society in general?
So, more or less how it is for everyone here in Norway.
I see this can be efficient and useful inside a company with mainly highly-educated workers, with stringent admission standards. But would such a thing work in society in general?
It could. The US trails the rest of the civilized world in maternity/paternity leave policies by a WIDE margin. It works if we insist everyone play by the same rules. There is no competitive advantage to be gained if everyone is allowed to take leave to care for a newborn. It would be harder for small companies to do this but there are ways of working around that too with a little government help. Basically this sort of policy is just a way of showing that you actually care about the well being of your fellow citizens. I can't figure out why so many people in the US think that is somehow a bad thing.
Take as much holidays as you want, come to work when you want, etc...
Check this presentation about the Netflix Culture (http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664?from=ss_embed).
Basically they want high performers, and if that means you perform high coming to work 20 hrs a week, so be it. It also means if you're pulling 80 hrs a week and are just getting by, that's not enough. You don't get an A+ for "trying hard", you get an A+ for achieving high performance. That's all that matters.
Speaking as an executive at comcast, where our bundled services provide savings and the dark lord reigns supreme on throne of bleached bone, We've had similar perks for our staff for quite some time now. Among our generous benefits are:
unlimited child sequestration: If you've recently had a child, you're welcome to bring them to work and store them conveniently inside the 'b' compartment of the second floor copier. Older Comcast employees might know this as the waste toner bin (it has been made child friendly.)
the paternal mines: Did you recently have a child and are wanting to spend more time with them? Head down to the fourth floor (past brittanies cubicle) and into the insufferable mines of the black goat with a hundred lips. There, you'll enjoy the warm aroma of burnt flesh amidst the screams and wails of countless babes. take advantage of our open door policy while youre there and get to know Comcasticles, the dark lord to which we all pray, and who feasts upon the marrow of so many broken. Manilla envelopes have also been moved here to make room for the new fax machine upstairs.
Good people go to bed earlier.
These parental leave policies make employees happy. Happier employees = more productive employees. More productive employees = lower expenses. Lower expenses = higher profits at a given level of revenue. Therefore there is no reason to increase the price to the consumer (unless you're relentlessly greedy like so many companies).
There is a world beyond the end of your nose, you should check it out.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
It's because it's never that simple. First of all, a government mandate that it refuses to pay for is an act of political cowardice.
Yes it really is that simple. And who said anything about a government mandate without funding? There absolutely should be funding to help small businesses out on this and yes this will mean raising taxes.
Other than that, if the government mandates employers pay for such long leaves, it will hugely penalize small companies, and prospective employment of women.
Only if our policies regarding that leave are as stupid as the barbaric policies we have now. Right now if a worker has a child they have the un-enviable choice of keeping their job or spending the appropriate amount of time with their child which is particularly hard during the first year of their life. If everyone (male and female) is guaranteed leave without fear of losing their job then it will not disadvantage any group or company of any size. We raise taxes and help small businesses out with funding employees who take parental leave.
but there are people out there who take their "right" to have kids and stomp on my "right" to not pay a dime for their terrible decisions. We shouldn't be incentivizing having more kids in any settings, we should de-incentivize having kids when you can't afford it (ie. jail time).
I've often thought that the days of getting tax breaks for people who turn the vagina into a clown car, like the ex-reality stars Duggar family, should go away. I'll even be generous - you get 3 deductions for children, and after 4, you start losing deductions.
And speaking of America's favorite over-reproducers, I'm trying to imagine what would happen if both the father and mother had started at Netflix when they first were married, then took the allowed year off for each child.
Looks like they might be able to have a long career at Netflix, and be paid without ever showing up.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I also suspect that if you actually tried to take that year of paid leave (especially if you're a father), they would suddenly find a way to fire you or cut your pay.
I doubt it - a year of p/maternity leave is actually a legal requirement in places like Canada. Finding a way to fire someone after returning would get a company into very hot water very quickly. However, depending on your company, you do not get your full salary for the year and it drops after some number of months to the statutory p/maternity leave pay. I took a week off when our kids were born without any issues.
...they'll be paying everyone $70k a year minimum just like Gravity Payments.
Of course, that didn't work out too well
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I'd like to add on to this. The logical conclusion of GP's post is that everyone should retire once they have kids. Or, only incompetent people should breed, so that "good" employees never have to take any time off for children's sake.
Did I enter a Dilbert strip somewhere along the line here, or am I misunderstanding GP's point?
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
To steal a known expression, there's no such thing as a free vacation or maternity/paternity leave. Of all the people who don't get overtime pay, how many of those do you know who spend less than a typical work week at the office? Saying it's unlimited replaces clear and predictable limits with limits imposed by vague and arbitrary social norms and underhanded management pressure to work more. You think you can pull off delivering 100% in 80% of the time? Go ask your boss for an 80% position with the same pay, if he's not willing to do that he's not going let you take a day off every week either.
These are the kind of things that should be set on the macro level as part of your employment relationship. We expect you to work so many hours a week, you get this many weeks of vacation and various other benefits and you get paid this much. Because at the end of the day, you're both going to look at the totality and ask what's my employer/employee really giving me for what I give him. On the micro level there should always be a price to pay, if my employer wants me to work more he should pay more and then it's only natural that if I want to work less I should get paid less.
I have in my contract that I have five weeks vacation, it doesn't mean I have to take all five weeks or that I can't get more time off but that's then a deviation from the norm explicitly written in my contract. If I wanted a sixth week, it's naturally with no pay. If my boss wants me to work another week, that's clearly for extra pay. If either of us aren't happy with the total value the right place to take this is when negotiating salary, not trying to force me to work extra for free or trying to stretch my vacations to compensate.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Maybe they should look at how things are going at Gravity Payments.
IMHO, this is B.S. Nobody EVER took paternity leave until a few years ago and the world didn't end and kids grew up plenty well-adjusted.
We've had that for years where I work. Just tell the boss you knocked up his daughter.
Have gnu, will travel.
Dear Douche,
Anybody working full time (or near full time) should be able to afford to live out of abject poverty without government assistance. What about the $4000+ an hour the CEO of said burger flippery makes? No outrage there, eh? Also, $15 an hour shouldn't be a benefit...more like a 'living wage'.
Also, $15 an hour shouldn't be a benefit...more like a 'living wage'.
Clue #1: a minimum wage job isn't something you should live off of. It is expressly for teenagers and for folks who use it as a stepping stone or fallback until something better comes along.
Clue #2: these jobs usually require little-to-no skill, and consequently do not bear the value of $15/hr at current inflation/valuation.
Clue #3: when you price human labor too high, automation becomes more attractive. There are already machines that can effectively replace fast-food cashiers, and are cheaper to operate and maintain than $15/hr people. There are also machines coming online that can operate the back-end of a fast food joint as well, which will also just come under the wire as being cheaper (but would come out ahead by being reliable, on-time, etc.)
Clue #4: sucks to say it, but no one owes you a living -anything, let alone a "living wage" (whatever that means). Safety nets and charity are for those unable to help themselves, and obviously for those among us in temporary desperate situations, but that's it. Meanwhile, if you are able-bodied and not mentally defective, then it is up to you to better yourself by any legal means possible.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
My wife and I have decided to not have children at this point. So chuck decides he wants kids and they have one. If I work at Netflix I'm now stuck picking up chucks work load for a year. What if I can't even have kids? What if maybe I have s three year old so I missed out. To me a year is ridiculous and unfair to other workers.
Workers with kids already get to just jump up and leave where I work when they need to. Hey my kids sick. Now I'm picking up their work. Well I'm gonna start saying my cat is sick and leave or I gotta pick my cat up from daycare. Fuck people with kids they always get special treatment for choices they made in their personal life and want to foist it in everyone else
And how does wanting companies to do this kind of compensation for personal choices reconcile with the whole get out of my business vibe these days? .... Seems pretty contradictory to me.
Hey evil corporations I value my privacy don't spy on me or get up in my personal life! Don't hold what I do in my free time against me! If I want to do drugs at home or pose naked on the interwebz or whatever you can't fire me for it! Oh but if I choose to have a kid you better pay me and give me time off for i!t
Everybody screams over population and oh climate change (it's a fraud anyway) yada but everybody wants to subsidize and incentivize child birth. Pay me to have one at my company. Give me tax breaks so its profitable to sit at home and pump out kids. Or now abort it so PP staff can get a Lambo.
Ps your unlimited time off headline is BS wording.
I fully support your eugenics program.
Ummm, what he was talking about isn't eugenics.
I've never seen an expectation of the parents to be financially responsible anywhere as being remotely called eugenics.
That would be more like family focused economic policy. Which sounds like something we'd see on the 700 Club.
He was implying that a person should have enough liquid assets on hand so that they do not need to be paid to take a leave of absence. He's suggesting that this program at Netflix would encourage riffraff to reproduce. He was indicating that those who are independently wealthy are somehow more worthy of passing on their genetic heritage. He wants to criminalize reproduction amongst the poor. That sounds like a eugenics program to me. He took it to a much greater extreme than "Hey you really should try to avoid having more children than you can afford."
I already see a lot of posts that basically say, "Why should I have to pay for someone else's paternity leave?" This is a good move that will definitely be controversial to the young, single techie set. If the demographics are to be believed, Millenials are having even fewer children, much of the reason being that they don't feel stable enough to settle down and, well, procreate. There is also a huge number of younger people who hate even the idea of having children, so you often hear complaints like, "Why don't I get to take a day off when you have to take care of your sick kid?" "Why can't you work 60 hours a week like the rest of the single people?" "Oh great, the procreators are raising prices for everyone."
I have 2 kids, 4 and 2, so I'm just climbing out of the early childhood no-sleep, constant work Twilight Zone of fatherhood. One of the reasons I stay with my current employer is flexibility. We don't have an official paternity leave policy, but I do have a boss and several colleagues who've been through this whole thing before. My boss has basically told me he knows I'll have to be out sometimes, and have days I'm not productive and is completely supportive of that because I more than make up for it later on. We're not a Silicon Valley startup managed and staffed by single 20-something males, so I think that accounts for some of the difference. The company I work for has a pretty long average tenure basically because the work we do means we can't just burn through developers and IT people on a revolving door basis. People need to stick around and learn/master the problem domain. The company isn't the most in-tune HR-wise, but line management knows what's needed to keep the ship moving.
I doubt a Scandinavian style parental leave policy will ever fly in Libertarianland, but it would be nice for more employers to do something other than "burn through all your vacation, then back to work" or basically do what mine does -- cutting new dads and moms slack when needed. As long as people don't abuse it, it works. If the economy has shifted to the point where both parents need to work to avoid a looming financial disaster and not be miserable, then this seems like a good compromise. I think a company putting this into official HR policy gives themselves a good recruiting tool.
I fully support your eugenics program.
Which twisted sort of racism is in your head, that you think the expectation that people be prepared to finance and rear their own offspring should somehow be different depending on skin pigment? As usual, the people who recoil and spit venom at the mere mention of personal accountability ... turn out, under the hood, to be the real racists.
Eugenics isn't strictly limited to race. In fact, most proponents of Eugenics want to prevent the poor, handicapped, homosexual, intellectually average, and other "deviants" (regardless of skin color) from reproducing. The OP wants to imprison people for having children that they cannot afford. His definition of being unable to afford children include Netflix employees that have to take a leave of absence to care for their children. Do you consider that to be reasonable? Does it sound like the OP really cares about people being responsible for their reproductive choices, or do you think the just wants to prevent anyone who he considers to be inferior from reproducing? It sounds like the latter to me.
Clue #1: a minimum wage job isn't something you should live off of. It is expressly for teenagers and for folks who use it as a stepping stone or fallback until something better comes along.
---Shouldn't be, but is. Reality sucks. We have people in their adult years working fast food. It is a fantasy that only teens should be 'flipping burgers'.
Clue #2: these jobs usually require little-to-no skill, and consequently do not bear the value of $15/hr at current inflation/valuation.
---Neither does working at a factory in many cases, but that seemed to be deemed 'middle class worthy' in the 60s-70s where a single worker could support an entire family. What you're saying is 'you deserve to be destitute, you unskilled scum'.
Clue #3: when you price human labor too high, automation becomes more attractive. There are already machines that can effectively replace fast-food cashiers, and are cheaper to operate and maintain than $15/hr people. There are also machines coming online that can operate the back-end of a fast food joint as well, which will also just come under the wire as being cheaper (but would come out ahead by being reliable, on-time, etc.) /hr would hasten that. All the more reason to support things like a basic income now (perhaps with some civil service requirement), since the mass unemployment problem is only going to get worse.
---Can't argue with that. Automation is coming, regardless of where the minimum wage is. No doubt that raising it to $15
Clue #4: sucks to say it, but no one owes you a living -anything, let alone a "living wage" (whatever that means). Safety nets and charity are for those unable to help themselves, and obviously for those among us in temporary desperate situations, but that's it. Meanwhile, if you are able-bodied and not mentally defective, then it is up to you to better yourself by any legal means possible.
---Ah yes, the 'brutalist' libertarian view. I guess that's where we differ. I'm for treating all people with respect, and providing a safe place to live/eat/prosper. Not 'too bad, so sad, fuck off.' Ideally, regardless of borders, but that's more of a long term thing. You seem to still think that if you're 'able bodied' there is good work available, and you're just lazy if you don't grab it. I'd consider that pretty naive given the population explosion the world has experienced in the past 50 years alone.
Where/how do we pay for all of this idealism? It's pretty obvious that money is essentially made up and totally fiat. It's also pretty obvious that a tiny tiny percentage of people hoard a crazy-huge sum of that money. Arguably, keeping it out of circulation avoids hyperinflation and all that. Considering that over 70% of our economy is consumer-driven, wouldn't giving those consumers more money to...consume with...the economy would benefit immensely? I think such benefits would far outweigh any inflationary risks, but I'm no economist.
Playing devil's advocate for a moment, (I'm actually a parent), but other than the general societal benefit of paternal/maternal leave, why should parents get it and NON parents not get similar compensation?
Where's the year off of paid leave for someone who wants to see Europe, for example? People CHOOSE to have kids, why should they get paid extra (in the form of paid leave) by companies for it?
In the end, it comes in the form of a net tax benefiting people who have kids, or more kids, on the people have fewer or no kids.
My paternity leave took the form of leave that everyone in my office gets, actually, the only additional protection/benefit I got over non-parents was legal protection from getting fired for using the leave. That seems like much less of an imposition on everyone else than actually being paid.
It seems more rational and fair to me, absent a national goal of having more kids, to just offer everyone "leave" and parents can use theirs for kid-rearing, and other people can go to Europe, or go work another job and double their income.
--PeterM
I fully support your eugenics program.
Ummm, what he was talking about isn't eugenics.
I've never seen an expectation of the parents to be financially responsible anywhere as being remotely called eugenics.
That would be more like family focused economic policy. Which sounds like something we'd see on the 700 Club.
He was implying that a person should have enough liquid assets on hand so that they do not need to be paid to take a leave of absence.
He said no such thing anywhere. Show me where he said that. I read it that people should have children when they can support them. Is that a bad thing?
He's suggesting that this program at Netflix would encourage riffraff to reproduce.
He said no such thing. In fact, he wrote:
"Netflix did something helpful for new parents, sure, (and people working at netflix are probably people we'd rather be having more kids than Joe Bob and his sister/wife Fanny Mae) "
If you doubt the veracity of what I wrote, it's just a few posts up.
He was indicating that those who are independently wealthy are somehow more worthy of passing on their genetic heritage.
He said no such thing. Show me the part where he said people have to be independently wealthy in order to have children. Nor do I recall ant mention of genetics anywhere in his post. Show me.
He wants to criminalize reproduction amongst the poor.
I don't agree with the concept of jailing people - he wrote that and I disagree with it. But if you want to go all Duggar on the country, I fully support eliminating children dependent claims after a certain point.
Certainly if he looked at his jail 'em concept, he'd see that now we are supporting those folks in jail, which kind of flies in the face of smart financiall outlook on raising a family.
That sounds like a eugenics program to me.
Well, sorry muchacho, you don''t get to define everything, especially when you make shit up to make your point. The only thing you've been accurate about in your quest for high dudgeon is his jailing comment. The rest is odd crap you made up to support your jeremiad.
You do - as always, have the right to your own opinion.
You do not - as always, have the right to your own facts.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
People without kids...if I worked there and said "Boss, I can't come to work today because I've got to take my turtle to the vet." or "Sorry I'm not productive today, I spent all night playing WoW and din't get any sleep."
Those excuses aren't materially different than "Got to take Susie to the pediatrician." or "Susie was crying all night so we didn't get any sleep." except for the whole kid thing.
Being out-of-the-office is being out-of-the-office, and being unproductive is being unproductive.
Does everyone have flexibility to take time off or be unproductive or just breeders?
The simple answer is that having children is a benefit to society. Those children will be the foundation for the future when you are retired - they will be doing the work. Society has decided to reward people who help provide that benefit.
Clue #1: a minimum wage job isn't something you should live off of. It is expressly for teenagers and for folks who use it as a stepping stone or fallback until something better comes along.
Who says? This is misinformation/propaganda being spread. If you look at the actual bill that instituted the minimum wage in the US (the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938), the law literally says the reasoning for setting the minimum wage is "Congress finds that ... labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standing of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers causes ..." and then goes on to list negative effects of not being paid enough to live. So yes, the law quite literally states that the minimum wage is something you're meant to live off of. (Feel free to read the law yourself on the Dept of Labor website.
This idea of "teenagers can do it" is only a ploy to make people complacent with low wages. Remember a teenager at 17/18 can easily be out living on their own and not have the support of family (for many reasons: family doesn't have ability to help, family has cancer and teenager needs to support them, family is crazy/insane/drug addicts, family is dead, etc.), and so even teenagers should make enough money to support themselves.
Clue #2: these jobs usually require little-to-no skill, and consequently do not bear the value of $15/hr at current inflation/valuation.
When the minimum wage was instituted in 1938, the many US jobs were in agriculture or simple manufacturing. I don't consider those jobs to be "high skill", but that doesn't mean they're not super important (without food, we die -- about as important as you can get! and manufacturing gave us the modern world, despite many of those jobs being just to screw the same bolt on over and over). So for one thing, skill does not equate with importance, and I think important jobs especially should be well paid.
Furthermore, have you seen secretary and human resources job these days? Also requires pretty low skill (mostly just typing and sending emails and filling out forms -- anyone who can read and write can do it, really), but look at how much these people make (in my area, you can get jobs in HR making upwards of $50k with only minimal experience, much above minimum wage). If we were going by your metric, these paper-pusher jobs should be making low pay and important jobs like farmers and restaurants that provide me food should be making more.
All of this is an aside from the real goal of minimum wage, which is that if you do ANY type of work for anyone, you're important to someone and should be able to support yourself doing that work. If you're not needed, why did the company hire you? I'm tired of this idea that companies are entitled to cheap labor; if your company requires effectively slave labor to exist, then how about we state the truth that your company is failing, not doing well, and maybe should go bankrupt due to mismanagement rather than keeping it chugging on the backs of the poor?
Clue #3: when you price human labor too high, automation becomes more attractive. There are already machines that can effectively replace fast-food cashiers, and are cheaper to operate and maintain than $15/hr people. There are also machines coming online that can operate the back-end of a fast food joint as well, which will also just come under the wire as being cheaper (but would come out ahead by being reliable, on-time, etc.)
That is going to happen no matter what because of corporate greed to always maximize profit. Even if we paid people $1/hr, at some point people would need to eat and sleep while a machine could work all night long straight, cranking out more widgets. We can't compete with technology.
What we instead need to do is have real discussion on what the future economy looks like when jobs are phased out by robo
"My wife and I aren't sick, but Chuck is. If I work at $company I'm now stuck paying for Chuck's medical bills, via insurance premiums."
"My wife and I don't exercise at the office gym, but Chuck does. If I work at $company I'm now stuck picking up Chuck's work load while he exercises."
"My wife and I bike to work, but Chuck drives. If I work at $company I'm now stuck paying for a parking lot for Chuck, via decreased salary because they had to budget for it."
Sheesh.
I am not a sig.