SEATTLE — Microsoft said on Wednesday that it would offer new parents an additional eight weeks of paid time off from their jobs at the company, in a significant boost to its parental leave benefits.
Microsoft’s changes to its policy came a day after Netflix, the online video service, said it would allow new mothers and fathers who are employees to take as much paid time off as they need during the first year after the birth or adoption of a child. The more generous policies are a way to hold onto employees, particularly the highly skilled technical workers who are in extremely high demand in the booming tech industry.
The moves by Netflix and Microsoft could be a sign of similar changes to come at other companies. Because the industry is so competitive and changing so fast, a move by one company can quickly lead to a wave of similar actions among its competitors.
Last year, for example, Google released a report about the diversity of the company’s work force. Within months, many other tech companies followed suit, and like Google used their reports to say that they needed to improve their hiring of women as well as blacks and Hispanics.
Microsoft’s previous policy gave new mothers eight weeks of paid disability leave, and 12 weeks of parental leave for all new mothers and fathers, of which four were paid and eight unpaid. That meant new mothers could receive up to 12 weeks of paid time off.
Under its new policy, announced in a blog post on Wednesday, new mothers and fathers can take up to 12 weeks of parental leave, all of it paid. Including the eight weeks of maternity disability leave will bring to 20 the number of paid weeks new mothers at Microsoft can take off after the birth of a child.
New mothers can take an additional two weeks of short-term disability leave before the birth of a child. Microsoft will allow new mothers and fathers to take parental leave in one continuous 12-week period or split it into two periods. Employees will be allowed to resume their jobs at Microsoft on a part-time basis after parental leave.
“For these parents to bring their best every day, they need time to take care of themselves and their family,” Kathleen Hogan, executive vice president for human resources at Microsoft, wrote in the blog post.
Microsoft also said that starting in 2016 it will give employees two additional holidays off and improve its 401(k) matching policy.
While Microsoft’s changes are not as generous as those announced by Netflix, they still compare well with those of other tech companies. Twitter offers up to 20 weeks of paid maternity leave and 10 weeks of paid paternity leave, while Google offers 18 weeks of paid maternity leave.