7 ms·

What Marissa Mayer's maternity leave decision means for working parents at Yahoo

28 points by pmcpinto 11y ago

frik 11y ago
Her CEO stint will get an textbook example and taught in university/business schools.
- klunger 11y ago
  Can you elaborate?
  - keketi 11y ago
    She's a woman.
    - DanBC 11y ago
      It's hard to untangle the sexist ranting from the actual critique. Submitted article is saying that she should have taken more maternity leave in order to make it culturally acceptable within Yahoo for other parents to take that leave. (That's a good point, and is probably true.) But if she had taken more leave we'd have had a bunch of articles saying why she's terrible for taking that much leave. The future people will want to know why her PR is so terrible; and will be able to see a bit more clearly whether what she did was useful or not.
      - viscanti 11y ago
        I'm not sure it's a sexist ranting though. Zuckerberg just faced a similar criticism (about the precedent he is setting by only taking half the allotted time). I suspect that most CEOs would face criticisms if they were about to spin-off the primary business and become a holding company for international stocks (very few people would have defined that as a success before Meyer stepped in).
  - frik 11y ago
    Her career (stints at Google and Yahoo) as described on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marissa_Mayer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marissa_Mayer ) and mentioned several times in Eric Schmidt's book "How Google Works".
massysett 11y ago
What she is doing sends a message not to take all your leave. It also shows she is a poor manager. No manager, even CEO, should be so irreplaceable that she cannot step away from the job for several weeks, especially when the leave is anticipated. The leave should be viewed as a valuable opportunity to ensure that successors are being groomed and are ready to step in. She might think this "unique time in Yahoo's transformation" talk shows that she is pitching in to help, but all it says to me is that she either thinks she is more important than she is or that due to poor management she really is that important. Fail either way.
- JustSomeNobody 11y ago
  Agree. Certainly she has the right to choose, but this sends a bad message to all employees.
- seunosewa 11y ago
  "It also shows she is a poor manager. No manager, even CEO, should be so irreplaceable that she cannot step away from the job for several weeks" There is no evidence that she "cannot" step away. She just chose not to do so this time. Yes, a company should be able to function well in the absence of its CEO, but it should do even better when she is around.
- the_ancient 11y ago
  I disagree 100%... The board did not hire "other managers" they hired her, for the expressed purpose of turning Yahoo Around, and splitting out the Ablibaba Stock, now they have reverse that and will split out Yahoo Core but the fact remains when a Major restructuring like that is going on your damn right the CEO, the one hired by the board, should be at the helm, not the "other managers" Ultimately people need to stop looking to other people as "examples" and determine for themselves what they need to do for their family. If Yahoo Provides X leave, and a person chooses to only take Y, that is their choice, that does not mean other employees can not take all of it. Society seems to be developing a massive co-dependency problem and loosing individualism.
  - JustSomeNobody 11y ago
rnernento 11y ago
I'm not sure that I agree with this. With the current state of Yahoo Mayer is clearly in a tough position. She can't afford to be absent AT ALL. I suspect employees may recognize that her circumstances are not the same as their own and take the time they need.
- username223 11y ago
  I'm inclined to agree with you. If the board is questioning Mayer's leadership, i.e. her boss thinks she is not that great independent of her pregnancy, she's on thin ice. But what do I know -- if I were her, I'd gladly take the $100 million golden parachute and retire at 40.
  - ryandrake 11y ago
    I don't get it. With or without a golden parachute, she is likely already in the class of people who have enough wealth to never have to work a day in their lives ever again if they don't want to. Her children will probably not ever have to work a day in their lives either. Why choose not to take time with them? They're only babies once.
    - askafriend 11y ago
      This is why us normal people aren't hyper successful. We're not psychotic enough.
      - pen2l 11y ago
        Do you know there are guys working at Walmart who are forced to miss the birth of their children? I personally know a guy who was in this situation, he was a cashier at Walmart and was forced to miss his child's birth because he was forced to be there on a busy day. It's not just CEOs and high-paying folks not taking time off for paternity/maternity leave, it's everybody people who work in autoshops, cell phone stores, construction jobs, etc.
        11y ago
freewizard 11y ago
Well, what if she took 6 months off? Would there be another kind of criticizing, given Y!'s status? Tough be a woman in sv.
- atom-morgan 11y ago
  I'd applaud it. There's nothing I hate more than seeing people putting in extra hours at work instead of spending that time with their kids - especially when they're young. At nearly every job I've had I worked less hours than co-workers with a spouse and kids and I'm 25, single, with no kids. It's sad.
davedx 11y ago
Typical. Zuck takes half his parental leave, yet Facebook employees say "Four months and very little pressure to come back to work. I've personally never seen anyone not take the full amount when they had a child." When Mayer doesn't take her full leave, she is setting a bad example and pressuring her employees. What is the difference, here? Oh wait, I see it now...
- mrob 11y ago
  The difference is two months vs. two weeks (assuming Mayer's "limited time" will be the same as with her previous child, which is the best guess with nothing else reported). Two months is still reasonably generous by American standards, two weeks is not.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    Two weeks after giving birth to twins is ridiculously short.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  I did not notice Zuckerberg delivering the baby.
- pushtheenvelope 11y ago
  The four months is for the whole year. Many people take some time off initially and then the rest over the course of the year. So, its premature to judge that Zuck is taking "half his parental leave". (disclaimer: FB employee, views are personal)
  - JoBrad 11y ago
    Not too many people have more than one kid a year, though :)
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      Mayer will have two.
flavor8 11y ago
Tangent: I think that paid paternity/maternity leave is prejudicial against those who have chosen not to have kids. I get the sleepless nights in the first few months, and wouldn't want to deny parents time to bond with their newborns. But looking at it objectively, why should a company offer benefits associated _only_ with parenting? It benefits society (not individual companies) to encourage breeding, and therefore parental incentives should, if they exist at all, come from the state rather than private enterprise. At the company level, flexible personal paid leave for employees who have earned it might be a fairer arrangement.
- Jgrubb 11y ago
  Are you American? I totally agree with you but that's just not how we do things over here.
- rayiner 11y ago
  Parental leave is available to everyone. It's not prejudicial just because you choose not to take advantage of it, just like it's not prejudicial to offer gym memberships to people who choose not to work out. Besides that, parent leave is better seen as an accommodation (like bathrooms or wheelchair ramps), not a benefit. It's a human function necessary to society--until the robots take over anyway. Because it's uniquely tied up with work schedules, it's reasonable for society to force employers to make the accommodation. It's entirely reasonable for private enterprise to sometimes be forced to foot the bill for activities that benefit society rather than the business itself.
  - flavor8 11y ago
    > Parental leave is available to everyone. That's a parent-centric view. Some of us a really not wired to have offspring. Obviously the magnitude of the situation is different, but your statement is along the lines of saying that "marriage benefits are available to everybody" prior to gay marriage being legalized. > It's not prejudicial just because you choose not to take advantage of it, just like it's not prejudicial to offer gym memberships to people who choose not to work out. That's a question of magnitude also. Parental leave for software engineers is easily a $10-20k benefit. Gym membership is a $100/mo benefit.
fizixer 11y ago
yeah but what does "limited time away" mean? The whole article would be a waste if that really meant a couple weeks short of what mothers take on average. edit: okay, it says she took 2 weeks leave for her first child. That's short. A key point is "does she have a small army of maids at home?" because she can afford that when an average worker can't.
- HillRat 11y ago
  Actually, she built and staffed a nursery at her office, which is certainly a luxury not available to the average worker. Her statement on the matter doesn't acknowledge the fact that she has resources that are unique to her, which I find somewhat disingenuous.
bedhead 11y ago
When your job appears to be little more than dressing up and spending endless company funds on professional photo shoots, why wouldn't you be eager to return?
- dang 11y ago
  Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.
chrismcb 11y ago
Maternity leave is not about her, it is about the children.

28 points by pmcpinto 11y ago

frik 11y ago

Her CEO stint will get an textbook example and taught in university/business schools.

klunger 11y ago
Can you elaborate?
- keketi 11y ago
  She's a woman.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    It's hard to untangle the sexist ranting from the actual critique. Submitted article is saying that she should have taken more maternity leave in order to make it culturally acceptable within Yahoo for other parents to take that leave. (That's a good point, and is probably true.) But if she had taken more leave we'd have had a bunch of articles saying why she's terrible for taking that much leave. The future people will want to know why her PR is so terrible; and will be able to see a bit more clearly whether what she did was useful or not.
    - viscanti 11y ago
      I'm not sure it's a sexist ranting though. Zuckerberg just faced a similar criticism (about the precedent he is setting by only taking half the allotted time). I suspect that most CEOs would face criticisms if they were about to spin-off the primary business and become a holding company for international stocks (very few people would have defined that as a success before Meyer stepped in).
- frik 11y ago
  Her career (stints at Google and Yahoo) as described on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marissa_Mayer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marissa_Mayer ) and mentioned several times in Eric Schmidt's book "How Google Works".

massysett 11y ago

What she is doing sends a message not to take all your leave. It also shows she is a poor manager. No manager, even CEO, should be so irreplaceable that she cannot step away from the job for several weeks, especially when the leave is anticipated. The leave should be viewed as a valuable opportunity to ensure that successors are being groomed and are ready to step in. She might think this "unique time in Yahoo's transformation" talk shows that she is pitching in to help, but all it says to me is that she either thinks she is more important than she is or that due to poor management she really is that important. Fail either way.

JustSomeNobody 11y ago
Agree. Certainly she has the right to choose, but this sends a bad message to all employees.
seunosewa 11y ago
"It also shows she is a poor manager. No manager, even CEO, should be so irreplaceable that she cannot step away from the job for several weeks" There is no evidence that she "cannot" step away. She just chose not to do so this time. Yes, a company should be able to function well in the absence of its CEO, but it should do even better when she is around.
the_ancient 11y ago
I disagree 100%... The board did not hire "other managers" they hired her, for the expressed purpose of turning Yahoo Around, and splitting out the Ablibaba Stock, now they have reverse that and will split out Yahoo Core but the fact remains when a Major restructuring like that is going on your damn right the CEO, the one hired by the board, should be at the helm, not the "other managers" Ultimately people need to stop looking to other people as "examples" and determine for themselves what they need to do for their family. If Yahoo Provides X leave, and a person chooses to only take Y, that is their choice, that does not mean other employees can not take all of it. Society seems to be developing a massive co-dependency problem and loosing individualism.
- JustSomeNobody 11y ago

rnernento 11y ago

I'm not sure that I agree with this. With the current state of Yahoo Mayer is clearly in a tough position. She can't afford to be absent AT ALL. I suspect employees may recognize that her circumstances are not the same as their own and take the time they need.

username223 11y ago
I'm inclined to agree with you. If the board is questioning Mayer's leadership, i.e. her boss thinks she is not that great independent of her pregnancy, she's on thin ice. But what do I know -- if I were her, I'd gladly take the $100 million golden parachute and retire at 40.
- ryandrake 11y ago
  I don't get it. With or without a golden parachute, she is likely already in the class of people who have enough wealth to never have to work a day in their lives ever again if they don't want to. Her children will probably not ever have to work a day in their lives either. Why choose not to take time with them? They're only babies once.
  - askafriend 11y ago
    This is why us normal people aren't hyper successful. We're not psychotic enough.
    - pen2l 11y ago
      Do you know there are guys working at Walmart who are forced to miss the birth of their children? I personally know a guy who was in this situation, he was a cashier at Walmart and was forced to miss his child's birth because he was forced to be there on a busy day. It's not just CEOs and high-paying folks not taking time off for paternity/maternity leave, it's everybody people who work in autoshops, cell phone stores, construction jobs, etc.
      - 11y ago

freewizard 11y ago

Well, what if she took 6 months off? Would there be another kind of criticizing, given Y!'s status? Tough be a woman in sv.

atom-morgan 11y ago
I'd applaud it. There's nothing I hate more than seeing people putting in extra hours at work instead of spending that time with their kids - especially when they're young. At nearly every job I've had I worked less hours than co-workers with a spouse and kids and I'm 25, single, with no kids. It's sad.

davedx 11y ago

Typical. Zuck takes half his parental leave, yet Facebook employees say "Four months and very little pressure to come back to work. I've personally never seen anyone not take the full amount when they had a child." When Mayer doesn't take her full leave, she is setting a bad example and pressuring her employees. What is the difference, here? Oh wait, I see it now...

mrob 11y ago
The difference is two months vs. two weeks (assuming Mayer's "limited time" will be the same as with her previous child, which is the best guess with nothing else reported). Two months is still reasonably generous by American standards, two weeks is not.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  Two weeks after giving birth to twins is ridiculously short.
jacquesm 11y ago
I did not notice Zuckerberg delivering the baby.
pushtheenvelope 11y ago
The four months is for the whole year. Many people take some time off initially and then the rest over the course of the year. So, its premature to judge that Zuck is taking "half his parental leave". (disclaimer: FB employee, views are personal)
- JoBrad 11y ago
  Not too many people have more than one kid a year, though :)
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    Mayer will have two.

flavor8 11y ago

Tangent: I think that paid paternity/maternity leave is prejudicial against those who have chosen not to have kids. I get the sleepless nights in the first few months, and wouldn't want to deny parents time to bond with their newborns. But looking at it objectively, why should a company offer benefits associated _only_ with parenting? It benefits society (not individual companies) to encourage breeding, and therefore parental incentives should, if they exist at all, come from the state rather than private enterprise. At the company level, flexible personal paid leave for employees who have earned it might be a fairer arrangement.

Jgrubb 11y ago
Are you American? I totally agree with you but that's just not how we do things over here.
rayiner 11y ago
Parental leave is available to everyone. It's not prejudicial just because you choose not to take advantage of it, just like it's not prejudicial to offer gym memberships to people who choose not to work out. Besides that, parent leave is better seen as an accommodation (like bathrooms or wheelchair ramps), not a benefit. It's a human function necessary to society--until the robots take over anyway. Because it's uniquely tied up with work schedules, it's reasonable for society to force employers to make the accommodation. It's entirely reasonable for private enterprise to sometimes be forced to foot the bill for activities that benefit society rather than the business itself.
- flavor8 11y ago
  > Parental leave is available to everyone. That's a parent-centric view. Some of us a really not wired to have offspring. Obviously the magnitude of the situation is different, but your statement is along the lines of saying that "marriage benefits are available to everybody" prior to gay marriage being legalized. > It's not prejudicial just because you choose not to take advantage of it, just like it's not prejudicial to offer gym memberships to people who choose not to work out. That's a question of magnitude also. Parental leave for software engineers is easily a $10-20k benefit. Gym membership is a $100/mo benefit.

fizixer 11y ago

yeah but what does "limited time away" mean? The whole article would be a waste if that really meant a couple weeks short of what mothers take on average. edit: okay, it says she took 2 weeks leave for her first child. That's short. A key point is "does she have a small army of maids at home?" because she can afford that when an average worker can't.

HillRat 11y ago
Actually, she built and staffed a nursery at her office, which is certainly a luxury not available to the average worker. Her statement on the matter doesn't acknowledge the fact that she has resources that are unique to her, which I find somewhat disingenuous.

bedhead 11y ago

When your job appears to be little more than dressing up and spending endless company funds on professional photo shoots, why wouldn't you be eager to return?

dang 11y ago
Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.

chrismcb 11y ago

Maternity leave is not about her, it is about the children.