9 ms·

Microsoft Expands Its Parental Leave, Bolsters Paid Time Off And 401k Matching

119 points by someear 11y ago

sandworm101 11y ago
Benefits are all well and good, I'd just prefer the large tech employers work to employ more people rather than provide more to those that already have jobs. When these people are out on mat leave are they to be replaced by perma-temps on zero-hour contracts? There is also something to be said for pay over benefits. Pay is of equal value to all employees. Benefits like leave and 401ks are only valuable to some and can, if dominant over pay, lead to employers having undue influence over the lives of employees.
- Arainach 11y ago
  Any good manager scopes the amount of work to the number of people available. I work at a large tech company. I have a coworker who was on extended medical leave for the last year. During that year we shipped a new release of our product. I can absolutely tell you that there are areas of the product where we could have made additional improvements and had higher quality if that coworker was with us - but even without him, we still shipped, because we scheduled our workload knowing he wouldn't be there for that time.
- ghaff 11y ago
  >Pay is of equal value to all employees. Benefits like leave and 401ks are only valuable to some Well, no. In general, pay and leave are not 1:1 exchangeable if, indeed, they're exchangeable at all. At most companies, an employee can't just say "I'll trade 2 weeks pay for 2 weeks vacation." And, indeed, at some level an employee has to be worth more per day than they are actually paid. (I'm talking leave generically here. I've no interest in getting into a debate over parental leave specifically which of course applies under certain specific situations.) As for 401-K contributions, this gets into tax law and the fact that employer contributions (subject to various limits) are deductible in the US. In general, a lot of decisions related to benefits are very much driven by cost to employer (after taxes) and perceived benefit to typical employee (after taxes).
kelukelugames 11y ago
Here's the source: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2015/08/05/the-employee-experience-at-microsoft-aligning-benefits-to-our-culture/ https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2015/08/05/the-employee-exp...
marasgp 11y ago
https://sweden.se/quickfact/parental-leave/#shortfact-parental-leave https://sweden.se/quickfact/parental-leave/#shortfact-parent...
- refurb 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Sweden
  - floopidydoopidy 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where-to-be-born_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where-to-be-born_Index
toomuchtodo 11y ago
Between this and Netflix, I'm excited to see how quickly others in the industry respond to match.
- ljk 11y ago
  How likely is Amazon going to follow this trend?
  - seansmccullough 11y ago
    Raising pay would be a good first step...
  - rifung 11y ago
    I'd bet my money against Amazon following. Amazon already lags behind the rest of the industry in terms of benefits. Employee happiness isn't really one of their values. "Frugality" on the other hand, is. Just an opinion of a former Amazonian though.
- s0mecats 11y ago
  Salesforce increased their benefits as well, see: http://getsalesforcebenefits.com/node/7856 http://getsalesforcebenefits.com/node/7856
bargl 11y ago
Wow, and I was excited about 4 weeks of paternity leave at my company. Which I'm still excited about by the way, Microsoft just seems like they are going above and beyond. I know some places let people take longer off, and Netflix essentially lets you take a year off. This amount of leave is insane to me. Even a month seems like so much I won't know how to use it. I mean after 2 weeks I was ready to go back to work, but the option to go work 2-4 days a week and then spend the rest of the time at home would be awesome. Last place I had to take vacation and my wife does not get Maternity leave at all.... That on the other hand is terrible.
- brational 11y ago
  The problem is that most Americans are shocked by this. Almost all of Europe has 6-12 months? Canada has 12? So we act like it's crazy generous thing to have so much paternity leave. Good for MS & netflix. The sooner we have a wave of big tech following the trend the better. I (working in the US) have a handful of friends that work in Germany and UK. The only "bad" thing about US employment is vacation and parental leave. As a male I don't see a need for 12 months but the fact that my wife get shit here (8 weeks of "sick leave" for having a child) is enough to constantly keep my ears open for opportunities in other countries. We need to stop being surprised and should be saying "about time".
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    > We need to stop being surprised and should be saying "about time". Hear hear.
    - markdown 11y ago
      Hear?
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        Upvoted. I cannot grammar today. Thanks.
bkjelden 11y ago
This matches the 401k match that Google has had for some time now. I would love to see this become a standard benefit in the tech industry. Given that many tech workers are young, and young tech workers usually have high salaries for their age (relative to other professions), 401k money is very, very valuable.
- hartard 11y ago
  Google matches the greater of something like 100% of $3000 - or - 50% of the max employee contribution. A 100% match from Microsoft would mean an annual 2015 contribution of $36,000 ($18,000 employee + $18,000 employer match) versus $27,000 maximum ($18,000 employee + $9,000 employer match) from Google. That's a $9000 difference. EDIT: Looks like the article is incorrect. Correct numbers are 50%, as stated in parent comment.
  - FatalErrorr 11y ago
    You're wrong. MS does 50%.
    - gamblor956 11y ago
      Read the announcement. MS now does 100% matching.
      - turk- 11y ago
        No. They are increasing from 50% of 6% to 50% of all deferrals. So the maximum before was like $540 if you put in $18,000. Now its $9000. "Retirement readiness is an important part of overall financial wellness, so beginning Jan. 1, 2016, we’ll increase the company’s 401(k) match from 50 percent of the first 6 percent that employees defer, to 50 percent of all regular deferrals."
        twoodfin 11y ago
        I don't think that's plausible. More likely the match was 50% of the first 6% of salary employees deferred. That would require an employee to earn $300,000 in order to see a maximum $9,000 match. Now an employee can receive the full match merely by deferring the maximum amount, regardless of their salary.
russnewcomer 11y ago
Really interesting to compare this with another (current) front page article, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10012312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10012312 As someone who is employed by a company of <10 and had to take 1 of 2 weeks vacation for the my kid's birth, I wish I had this kind of benefit, but then if I did, I'd have to deal with all of the negative parts of working for a big company. It's a trade-off, and here in the hinterlands where there isn't VC funding to be had for every app idea or billions behind the company already, we end up with what we can. I'm happier in my small company 8-5 with almost no extra time than I would be working for a big company 7-7 with regular demands for time put in outside of the office.
soperj 11y ago
This is so extremely weird for me. I'm currently on parental leave in Canada, for the next 17 weeks, paid. You get 50 weeks of leave here to split between mom & dad. It seems so ridiculous these articles saying that it'll be hard for the company to deal with the loss of the employee for that long. Hire someone for a 1 year term... done. There's really no excuse when so many other countries have been doing it for so long.
- marssaxman 11y ago
  That is an extremely weird idea for me. How can that possibly make financial sense for the employer, in the 21st century? I can see it working out a couple generations ago when people used to stick with one or two jobs for their entire career, but seriously, I've had three jobs in my career that barely lasted more than 50 weeks start to finish, and in only one case - a job I had for seven years - does it seem at all likely that the company could have amortized out the cost of a year-long vacation and still come out ahead. Amortized across an entire society, sure, it could work, but unless I'm totally misunderstanding the way Canada's system is set up, it seems like it's really bad luck for whichever employer gets stuck with the hot potato when someone decides to have a kid.
  - aianus 11y ago
    The government pays the benefits, not the company. So it is 'amortized across the entire society' in Canada. This Microsoft/Netflix way of doing it themselves is silly.
    - marssaxman 11y ago
      Oh, well that makes sense then.
    - bbcbasic 11y ago
      How does it work in Canada with respect to your salary. Is it a fixed amount for everyone? Or does it match your salary?
the_bear 11y ago
I've always viewed benefits like this as a way for the company to incentivize and/or reward certain behavior from employees. Offering a 401(k) match is a way to encourage employees to save for retirement. By that logic, offering parental benefits is a way to encourage people to have babies. That's always seemed a bit weird to me because it seems inappropriate for a company to be involved in something so personal. It seems reasonable for the government to say, "we want more people to have kids for the greater good" but it seems strange for companies to take it upon themselves to do that. I'm not saying new parents shouldn't be able to take time off, but it seems like people who choose not to have kids should receive similar benefits. Maybe companies should offer sabbaticals to everyone, and if some people choose to use that to take time off after having kids, then that's fine. But if someone isn't interested in having kids and instead wants to spend three months pursuing a hobby, that seems equally valid to me. Thoughts?
- bentcorner 11y ago
  I think it's more that they're incentivizing potential new hires that value having a family to come work for the company. Existing employees are going to have a baby either way, in the grand scheme of things a few months aren't going to change your mind about having a child. On the other hand, all things being equal, working for Microsoft vs working for another big corp, having more time off for your kids could tip the scales in Microsoft's favor.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    At the risk of being cynical, you're probably right. It's a benefit that's relevant (or potentially relevant) to many young new hires who might otherwise be somewhat skeptical of going to work for Microsoft.
- ghaff 11y ago
  I guess the difference, as you can see from the threads here, is that many people seem to think that extended paid parental leave is something that civilized governments are obligated to deliver (through employers). This is a fairly modern notion. Sabbaticals, not so much. I'm not sure many people are really viewing this through the lens of incentives though. I actually agree that, from a rationalist perspective, offering everyone periodic sabbaticals with a lot of scheduling flexibility is a nice thought. (Not quite the same thing--but I've always thought Intel's sabbaticals were a nice practice.)
outside1234 11y ago
Do you think its fair for someone who is childless to ask in response to this about a leave program for people like me who don't have kids?
- mrrrgn 11y ago
  I'm a child free person as well. I would really love to see tech companies offer short sabbatical periods. Knowing the people in the tech community, that time would almost certainly be put to good use: learning new skills, and finishing up backlogged personal projects. Sabbatical could be a benefit that kicks in after several years, and any parental leave before that time would just be subtracted.
- sremani 11y ago
  I think its a bit of selfish to look it as some form of vacation and it is not fair. I respect people for their choice of having and not having kids, but when you are responsible for another human being the context changes, life changes. I understand where you are coming from, but this will open a Pandora box, there is a difference between an employee who chose to have 3 children vs 1. So can the employee with only one maternity leave ask for something extra?
littletimmy 11y ago
Good move, but I fear this will lead to inequality being further entrenched into the workforce. It appears as if the very skilled workers like the ones at Microsoft, Netflix etc are going to have great lives, and the lesser workers (who may not have such great jobs) will have shittier lives. That's why the state stepping in is important, this needs to be the norm at a federal level. Otherwise we'll have the rich spend more time with their kids and raising healthier/smarter children, and the poor raising a class of slaves (low child IQ is connected to less parental involvement in early years) to serve the rich. That's not the American dream.
- jamestnz 11y ago
  > Otherwise we'll have the rich spend more time with their kids An interesting reversal of history, in a sense. For example Victorian England, where the rich were the ones with the means to "outsource" the raising of their kids, and often did so. Children of the posher classes would often have a more intimate and parent-like relationship with their "nanny" (or "nurse" or another member of the household staff), than with their own parents. The childrens' lives and daily timetables were managed entirely by the staff, and they were wheeled into the company of the parents for various daily occasions such as meal-times (and a pat on the head before bed). Aside from this, they spent their time relegated to the nursery, or in classes, or on outings with the staff. Nowadays, on the other hand, spending lots of time with the children is something that might be considered a luxury reserved for the financially secure (who aren't spending all their time taking busses to three jobs).
  - gamegoblin 11y ago
    I suspect that any parental-like relationship (such as that between a nanny and child) is more beneficial for the child's development than say, being home alone or in a substandard daycare with disinterested and high-turnover employees.
motti_s 11y ago
I'm not sure why people find the 401k changes confusing, here is how it works: The employee defers up to 18K (IRS limit), MSFT matches 50% of it, which is up to 9K. Previously they contributed 50% of the first 6% the employee deferred = a maximum of 3% of the salary. So for anyone who makes less than 300K (9K / 0.03), this means a higher match from MSFT.
suprgeek 11y ago
This is a really good move on Microsoft's part & affects about 60,000 people - so not an insignificant number. What is sad and pathetic is that in the US people are actually shocked by how good this is!! Everyone is programmed to go into "Oh but this will be a huge burden on the company" mode. What about the fact that currently the US has some of the shittiest laws on the books when it comes to Time-off for new parents? What about the burden on society when New Moms are forced into their workplace way too soon because of the crappy support from the govt.? So companies do not have to bear this burden but the new moms & babies can bear the hardship easily? Free enterprise does not mean a license to shirk some of the most basic responsibilities. We should be pushing our elected peeps to take stornger action on this
seattle_spring 11y ago
I wonder if Facebook will step up their 401k matching to meet or exceed this, particularly for their Seattle employees. I would ask the same for Amazon, but I seriously doubt anything will move their benefits needle much.
mzs 11y ago
You have to be careful about this. At a previous employer I got a bunch of comp time for my new kid, but when I got back I had these sort of sucker tasks for me to do and I felt this odd kind of resentment towards me from some. So I started looking for a different job cause I felt no matter what I did I could never go back to how it had been. I was pretty depressed about it, it was really subtle, and I think some of my coworkers must have felt I went off the deep end there.

119 points by someear 11y ago

Benefits are all well and good, I'd just prefer the large tech employers work to employ more people rather than provide more to those that already have jobs. When these people are out on mat leave are they to be replaced by perma-temps on zero-hour contracts? There is also something to be said for pay over benefits. Pay is of equal value to all employees. Benefits like leave and 401ks are only valuable to some and can, if dominant over pay, lead to employers having undue influence over the lives of employees.

Arainach 11y ago
Any good manager scopes the amount of work to the number of people available. I work at a large tech company. I have a coworker who was on extended medical leave for the last year. During that year we shipped a new release of our product. I can absolutely tell you that there are areas of the product where we could have made additional improvements and had higher quality if that coworker was with us - but even without him, we still shipped, because we scheduled our workload knowing he wouldn't be there for that time.
ghaff 11y ago
>Pay is of equal value to all employees. Benefits like leave and 401ks are only valuable to some Well, no. In general, pay and leave are not 1:1 exchangeable if, indeed, they're exchangeable at all. At most companies, an employee can't just say "I'll trade 2 weeks pay for 2 weeks vacation." And, indeed, at some level an employee has to be worth more per day than they are actually paid. (I'm talking leave generically here. I've no interest in getting into a debate over parental leave specifically which of course applies under certain specific situations.) As for 401-K contributions, this gets into tax law and the fact that employer contributions (subject to various limits) are deductible in the US. In general, a lot of decisions related to benefits are very much driven by cost to employer (after taxes) and perceived benefit to typical employee (after taxes).

kelukelugames 11y ago

Here's the source: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2015/08/05/the-employee-experience-at-microsoft-aligning-benefits-to-our-culture/ https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2015/08/05/the-employee-exp...

marasgp 11y ago

https://sweden.se/quickfact/parental-leave/#shortfact-parental-leave https://sweden.se/quickfact/parental-leave/#shortfact-parent...

refurb 11y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Sweden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Sweden
- floopidydoopidy 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where-to-be-born_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where-to-be-born_Index

toomuchtodo 11y ago

Between this and Netflix, I'm excited to see how quickly others in the industry respond to match.

ljk 11y ago
How likely is Amazon going to follow this trend?
- seansmccullough 11y ago
  Raising pay would be a good first step...
- rifung 11y ago
  I'd bet my money against Amazon following. Amazon already lags behind the rest of the industry in terms of benefits. Employee happiness isn't really one of their values. "Frugality" on the other hand, is. Just an opinion of a former Amazonian though.
s0mecats 11y ago
Salesforce increased their benefits as well, see: http://getsalesforcebenefits.com/node/7856 http://getsalesforcebenefits.com/node/7856

bargl 11y ago

Wow, and I was excited about 4 weeks of paternity leave at my company. Which I'm still excited about by the way, Microsoft just seems like they are going above and beyond. I know some places let people take longer off, and Netflix essentially lets you take a year off. This amount of leave is insane to me. Even a month seems like so much I won't know how to use it. I mean after 2 weeks I was ready to go back to work, but the option to go work 2-4 days a week and then spend the rest of the time at home would be awesome. Last place I had to take vacation and my wife does not get Maternity leave at all.... That on the other hand is terrible.

brational 11y ago
The problem is that most Americans are shocked by this. Almost all of Europe has 6-12 months? Canada has 12? So we act like it's crazy generous thing to have so much paternity leave. Good for MS & netflix. The sooner we have a wave of big tech following the trend the better. I (working in the US) have a handful of friends that work in Germany and UK. The only "bad" thing about US employment is vacation and parental leave. As a male I don't see a need for 12 months but the fact that my wife get shit here (8 weeks of "sick leave" for having a child) is enough to constantly keep my ears open for opportunities in other countries. We need to stop being surprised and should be saying "about time".
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  > We need to stop being surprised and should be saying "about time". Hear hear.
  - markdown 11y ago
    Hear?
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      Upvoted. I cannot grammar today. Thanks.

bkjelden 11y ago

This matches the 401k match that Google has had for some time now. I would love to see this become a standard benefit in the tech industry. Given that many tech workers are young, and young tech workers usually have high salaries for their age (relative to other professions), 401k money is very, very valuable.

hartard 11y ago
Google matches the greater of something like 100% of $3000 - or - 50% of the max employee contribution. A 100% match from Microsoft would mean an annual 2015 contribution of $36,000 ($18,000 employee + $18,000 employer match) versus $27,000 maximum ($18,000 employee + $9,000 employer match) from Google. That's a $9000 difference. EDIT: Looks like the article is incorrect. Correct numbers are 50%, as stated in parent comment.
- FatalErrorr 11y ago
  You're wrong. MS does 50%.
  - gamblor956 11y ago
    Read the announcement. MS now does 100% matching.
    - turk- 11y ago
      No. They are increasing from 50% of 6% to 50% of all deferrals. So the maximum before was like $540 if you put in $18,000. Now its $9000. "Retirement readiness is an important part of overall financial wellness, so beginning Jan. 1, 2016, we’ll increase the company’s 401(k) match from 50 percent of the first 6 percent that employees defer, to 50 percent of all regular deferrals."
      - twoodfin 11y ago
        I don't think that's plausible. More likely the match was 50% of the first 6% of salary employees deferred. That would require an employee to earn $300,000 in order to see a maximum $9,000 match. Now an employee can receive the full match merely by deferring the maximum amount, regardless of their salary.

russnewcomer 11y ago

Really interesting to compare this with another (current) front page article, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10012312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10012312 As someone who is employed by a company of <10 and had to take 1 of 2 weeks vacation for the my kid's birth, I wish I had this kind of benefit, but then if I did, I'd have to deal with all of the negative parts of working for a big company. It's a trade-off, and here in the hinterlands where there isn't VC funding to be had for every app idea or billions behind the company already, we end up with what we can. I'm happier in my small company 8-5 with almost no extra time than I would be working for a big company 7-7 with regular demands for time put in outside of the office.

soperj 11y ago

This is so extremely weird for me. I'm currently on parental leave in Canada, for the next 17 weeks, paid. You get 50 weeks of leave here to split between mom & dad. It seems so ridiculous these articles saying that it'll be hard for the company to deal with the loss of the employee for that long. Hire someone for a 1 year term... done. There's really no excuse when so many other countries have been doing it for so long.

marssaxman 11y ago
That is an extremely weird idea for me. How can that possibly make financial sense for the employer, in the 21st century? I can see it working out a couple generations ago when people used to stick with one or two jobs for their entire career, but seriously, I've had three jobs in my career that barely lasted more than 50 weeks start to finish, and in only one case - a job I had for seven years - does it seem at all likely that the company could have amortized out the cost of a year-long vacation and still come out ahead. Amortized across an entire society, sure, it could work, but unless I'm totally misunderstanding the way Canada's system is set up, it seems like it's really bad luck for whichever employer gets stuck with the hot potato when someone decides to have a kid.
- aianus 11y ago
  The government pays the benefits, not the company. So it is 'amortized across the entire society' in Canada. This Microsoft/Netflix way of doing it themselves is silly.
  - marssaxman 11y ago
    Oh, well that makes sense then.
  - bbcbasic 11y ago
    How does it work in Canada with respect to your salary. Is it a fixed amount for everyone? Or does it match your salary?

the_bear 11y ago

I've always viewed benefits like this as a way for the company to incentivize and/or reward certain behavior from employees. Offering a 401(k) match is a way to encourage employees to save for retirement. By that logic, offering parental benefits is a way to encourage people to have babies. That's always seemed a bit weird to me because it seems inappropriate for a company to be involved in something so personal. It seems reasonable for the government to say, "we want more people to have kids for the greater good" but it seems strange for companies to take it upon themselves to do that. I'm not saying new parents shouldn't be able to take time off, but it seems like people who choose not to have kids should receive similar benefits. Maybe companies should offer sabbaticals to everyone, and if some people choose to use that to take time off after having kids, then that's fine. But if someone isn't interested in having kids and instead wants to spend three months pursuing a hobby, that seems equally valid to me. Thoughts?

bentcorner 11y ago
I think it's more that they're incentivizing potential new hires that value having a family to come work for the company. Existing employees are going to have a baby either way, in the grand scheme of things a few months aren't going to change your mind about having a child. On the other hand, all things being equal, working for Microsoft vs working for another big corp, having more time off for your kids could tip the scales in Microsoft's favor.
- ghaff 11y ago
  At the risk of being cynical, you're probably right. It's a benefit that's relevant (or potentially relevant) to many young new hires who might otherwise be somewhat skeptical of going to work for Microsoft.
ghaff 11y ago
I guess the difference, as you can see from the threads here, is that many people seem to think that extended paid parental leave is something that civilized governments are obligated to deliver (through employers). This is a fairly modern notion. Sabbaticals, not so much. I'm not sure many people are really viewing this through the lens of incentives though. I actually agree that, from a rationalist perspective, offering everyone periodic sabbaticals with a lot of scheduling flexibility is a nice thought. (Not quite the same thing--but I've always thought Intel's sabbaticals were a nice practice.)

outside1234 11y ago

Do you think its fair for someone who is childless to ask in response to this about a leave program for people like me who don't have kids?

mrrrgn 11y ago
I'm a child free person as well. I would really love to see tech companies offer short sabbatical periods. Knowing the people in the tech community, that time would almost certainly be put to good use: learning new skills, and finishing up backlogged personal projects. Sabbatical could be a benefit that kicks in after several years, and any parental leave before that time would just be subtracted.
sremani 11y ago
I think its a bit of selfish to look it as some form of vacation and it is not fair. I respect people for their choice of having and not having kids, but when you are responsible for another human being the context changes, life changes. I understand where you are coming from, but this will open a Pandora box, there is a difference between an employee who chose to have 3 children vs 1. So can the employee with only one maternity leave ask for something extra?

littletimmy 11y ago

Good move, but I fear this will lead to inequality being further entrenched into the workforce. It appears as if the very skilled workers like the ones at Microsoft, Netflix etc are going to have great lives, and the lesser workers (who may not have such great jobs) will have shittier lives. That's why the state stepping in is important, this needs to be the norm at a federal level. Otherwise we'll have the rich spend more time with their kids and raising healthier/smarter children, and the poor raising a class of slaves (low child IQ is connected to less parental involvement in early years) to serve the rich. That's not the American dream.

jamestnz 11y ago
> Otherwise we'll have the rich spend more time with their kids An interesting reversal of history, in a sense. For example Victorian England, where the rich were the ones with the means to "outsource" the raising of their kids, and often did so. Children of the posher classes would often have a more intimate and parent-like relationship with their "nanny" (or "nurse" or another member of the household staff), than with their own parents. The childrens' lives and daily timetables were managed entirely by the staff, and they were wheeled into the company of the parents for various daily occasions such as meal-times (and a pat on the head before bed). Aside from this, they spent their time relegated to the nursery, or in classes, or on outings with the staff. Nowadays, on the other hand, spending lots of time with the children is something that might be considered a luxury reserved for the financially secure (who aren't spending all their time taking busses to three jobs).
- gamegoblin 11y ago
  I suspect that any parental-like relationship (such as that between a nanny and child) is more beneficial for the child's development than say, being home alone or in a substandard daycare with disinterested and high-turnover employees.

motti_s 11y ago

I'm not sure why people find the 401k changes confusing, here is how it works: The employee defers up to 18K (IRS limit), MSFT matches 50% of it, which is up to 9K. Previously they contributed 50% of the first 6% the employee deferred = a maximum of 3% of the salary. So for anyone who makes less than 300K (9K / 0.03), this means a higher match from MSFT.

suprgeek 11y ago

This is a really good move on Microsoft's part & affects about 60,000 people - so not an insignificant number. What is sad and pathetic is that in the US people are actually shocked by how good this is!! Everyone is programmed to go into "Oh but this will be a huge burden on the company" mode. What about the fact that currently the US has some of the shittiest laws on the books when it comes to Time-off for new parents? What about the burden on society when New Moms are forced into their workplace way too soon because of the crappy support from the govt.? So companies do not have to bear this burden but the new moms & babies can bear the hardship easily? Free enterprise does not mean a license to shirk some of the most basic responsibilities. We should be pushing our elected peeps to take stornger action on this

seattle_spring 11y ago

I wonder if Facebook will step up their 401k matching to meet or exceed this, particularly for their Seattle employees. I would ask the same for Amazon, but I seriously doubt anything will move their benefits needle much.

mzs 11y ago

You have to be careful about this. At a previous employer I got a bunch of comp time for my new kid, but when I got back I had these sort of sucker tasks for me to do and I felt this odd kind of resentment towards me from some. So I started looking for a different job cause I felt no matter what I did I could never go back to how it had been. I was pretty depressed about it, it was really subtle, and I think some of my coworkers must have felt I went off the deep end there.