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Nvidia – significant increases in parental benefits for employees
- option_greek 10y agoAm I reading this correct ? 12 weeks of paid paternity leave. My jaw is still hanging :) (Maternity leave is awesome too but its already more than 22 weeks in the country I live).
- johnward 10y agoI got 6 weeks paternity leave. I wasn't allowed to take it all at once but hey, it's something. We also extend benefits to adopting families like nvidia is doing.
- xigency 10y agoHm, I was lucky to have 2 days. The video game industry is great.
- vvanders 10y agoThis right here ladies and gentlemen is why you see so many people leave games. Work-life balance is almost non-existent in that industry.
- silencio 10y agoWeeeellllll, 2 days is still better than what a lot of folks in the US get. Which is to say, they don't even qualify for 12 weeks unpaid leave from FMLA as their employer is not big enough or they have not worked enough hours for their employer (part time and scheduling shenanigans), so they get no time off - not even unpaid - and no job security to speak of. There's a pitiful 3-4 states (including California) that offer partial paid leave. That's it. CA's is only ~50% taxable income for six weeks and no job protection if you are not covered by CFRA/FMLA. If you're a mother recovering from a C-section or if you're taking care of a seriously ill spouse, good luck!
- jstelly 10y agoWe have 6 months of paid parental leave in my tiny / unusual / wonderful corner of the video games industry.
- izym 10y agoMight I ask what company? Or at least which country? It sounds very nice :)
- ido 10y agoI had 2 months at part time (30h/w), also in the games industry.
- SeanBoocock 10y agoIt can be a lot better, even in the US. Electronic Arts recently updated its parental leave policy, offering ten weeks parental leave: http://www.ea.com/news/updating-our-parental-leave http://www.ea.com/news/updating-our-parental-leave
- endtime 10y agoGoogle has had 12 weeks for a while. I think Facebook is even more (3 or 4 months).
- vgt 10y ago12 weeks is 3 months :) I believe FB is 16 weeks?
- endtime 10y ago3 months is actually 13 weeks, which is why I referred to it as more.
- gefh 10y agoAs a grateful recipient of 12 weeks of parental leave, I hope this is a sign of a wider competitive benefits escalation. It seems likely that increased benefits will be confined to highly in-demand industries though. But who knows, maybe American workers outside of tech will one day get a paid vacation!
- semi-extrinsic 10y agoFWIW, this is the government mandated standard paternity leave for everyone in Norway. The mother also has to take the same in maternity leave, and then there's 26 weeks that can be shared between both parents, but in 99% of the cases the mother gets this. (To be perfectly correct, the parental leave length has been fluctuating between 10, 12 and 14 weeks during the last decade, in what amounts to a major bikeshedding competition by the political parties).
- eitally 10y agoI got 3 days from my previous company.
- serg_chernata 10y agoIs there something going on right now about parental leave benefits? Just a few stories below this one is a similar piece about Patagonia.
- bing_dai 10y agoHello, I am the person who submitted the link. I got to know the Nvidia story last night because a long-term friend who works there posted it on social media. He is newly wed, so he is understandably very excited about the new policy about paternal leave. It is indeed an interesting coincidence that there is another story about parental leave at the front page.
- achalkley 10y agoI just wanna buy an NVIDIA rig now
- devonkim 10y agoFunny, I thought ATI had a pretty large presence in Canada before AMD bought them?
- chollida1 10y agoI'm lucky enough to be Canadian and we've had universal parental leave for some time now, though not at full pay. Of my group of 5 close families, all of them ended up taking some form of parental leave. One parent was initially told no by her company before she pointed out that the government enforced this and the company couldn't say no. Most did things like rent a house somewhere else and stay for 2-3 weeks. All of them still rave bout this as being some of the best times of lives. If you do ever get the chance to do this, I recommend doing it with another couple in the same situation so you have a built in baby sitter so you can go out to diner without having to worry about who is watching your new born. Just to show the other side, one of my friends sent out this article below to highlight the downside of parental leave. As this becomes more common, I think companies will learn but it can still be a sticky topic. http://www.canadianbusiness.com/business-strategy/the-dark-side-of-maternity-leave/ http://www.canadianbusiness.com/business-strategy/the-dark-s...
- soperj 10y agoYep, I took 4 months with each of my kids. I got topped up to 80% though by my work. Easily the one of the best choices I've made.
- serge2k 10y ago> If you do ever get the chance to do this, I recommend doing it with another couple in the same situation so you have a built in baby sitter so you can go out to diner without having to worry about who is watching your new born. That actually sounds like a really clever system.
- anamoulous 10y agoI hope to one day have children and experience these things, but this runs counter to the narrative that parents put forward rationalizing why these kinds of benefits should not be afforded to people who choose not to have children. Often I've seen the argument that having and raising children is, itself, a form of work not a vacation or that having children is a form of public good and that's the reason why we can't all just have a standard paid "leave of absence".
- oflordal 10y agoThis is obviously a nice gesture by Nvidia but I always wonder how can it be legal to have different amounts for father/mothers? Are there no laws on discrimination based on sex in the US?
- itsdrewmiller 10y agoIt's not different for fathers and mothers, it's different for "person giving birth" and everyone else (including adoptive/foster moms).
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- johnward 10y agoMy wife had to take unpaid FMLA. I got 6 weeks paid. They even noticed she took 3 days too long and made a big deal out of it requiring her to come back exactly then end of the allowed FMLA time. This is still a step in the right direction. Plus giving birth is a little bit more difficult than my job as a dad.
- BinaryIdiot 10y agoDiscrimination is a non-issue here. The mother undergoes a medical procedure / event (giving birth). The father does not. So the one giving birth gets 22 weeks. The father gets 12 weeks. The mother of adoptive kids gets 12 weeks. I see no issue here. There are differences between the sexes and catering / supporting those differences doesn't automatically mean discrimination.
- tostitos1979 10y agoI'm a guy who just had a baby. I'm a pretty hands-on father. However, I have no problem for birth-givers (i.e. biological mom) getting more leave than men. In fact, it is a shame how bad mat leave is in most places. Even in Canada, it isn't full income replacement for a year .. there are a bunch of caveats.
- jedberg 10y agoIt's a political 3rd rail. There are laws about discrimination based on sex in the US, but you generally get a lot of flack for pointing out the unfairness if it benefits women, which is mostly considered ok since it's making up for the many years that the discrimination went the other way (and I'm actually ok with that). And to be fair, it's a hell of a lot harder on a birth mother than anyone else. You'll notice adoptive mothers in this policy only get the 12 week benefit too, so this one is already fairer than most.
- tater_sent_me 10y agoWow check your breeder privilege!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- pns 10y agoWhile some gap in paid maternity vs paternity leave is permissible as women uniquely have to recover from a childbirth (considered short-term disability), courts have found 6-weeks as the typical recovery time and thus the typical allowed difference in maternity/paternity leave duration [1]. Nvidia's clearly understands this issue - adoptive and foster parents parents receive the same leave as paternity (no disability for these groups of course). How are they've overcoming the legal issues around offering a 10-week difference in maternity/paternity leave? [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/16/business/attitudes-shift-on-paid-leave-dads-sue-too.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/16/business/attitudes-shift-o...
- serge2k 10y agoWhy would there be legal issues? Don't they have no obligation to do anything beyond the FMLA?
- pns 10y agoIt's a legal issue because courts have previously interpreted large differences (i.e. beyond recovery time) in _paid_ maternity vs paternity leave as a gender discrimination issue. See linked NYT article above One example from the article: "Just last week, CNN and Turner Broadcasting quietly settled an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charge with a former CNN correspondent, Josh Levs, who claimed that the company’s paid parental leave policy discriminated against biological fathers. At the time Mr. Levs’s daughter was born, in October 2013, CNN offered 10 weeks of paid leave to biological mothers and the same amount to parents of either gender who adopted children or relied on surrogates. By contrast, the company offered two weeks of paid leave to biological fathers."
- BinaryIdiot 10y agoThis is really awesome! Good for you nvidia! As a dad it sucks typically getting such low amounts of time off simply because I wasn't the one who gave birth when I want to bond with the baby as well as help my wife with anything I can. The last two times we had a baby they were at companies where I had to take vacation time to cover my time off (I was only able to take a little over a week off the last time).
- grondilu 10y agoI doubt it's related, but today NVIDIA's stock price is down 2.4%. I don't remember it falling down that much in intraday for a while. I don't know who took this decision to just give away money and free time to employees, and maybe it's good PR after all, but I do hope this is not announcing a trend.
- godzillabrennus 10y agoShort term costs mean attracting and retaining top talent longer. I've found it costs an employer an average of $3000 to hire someone for $8/hour and it costs an average of $26k to hire someone for $80/year. If you can pay someone a few weeks of salary and buy goodwill during a life event like this you keep your company competitive in the competitive tech space. TL;DR This will probably save them money in recruiter fees.
- EliRivers 10y agoI applaud it very much. When a company has money to give to someone, they can give it to shareholders or employees (or just the bosses who set their own remuneration). It's nice to see it going to employees. It's not just good PR; it's good. I hope it is a trend, and I'm speaking as someone who currently makes more money as a shareholder than from my job.
- grondilu 10y agoEmployees are supposed to receive a salary in exchange for their work. The decision on how to distribute profits is, theoretically, made by shareholders. Maybe they decided to give some to employees in order to improve morale or something. If so, that's OK. If somehow the shareholders were left out of this decision, via some authoritative action from the executives or something, it's wrong.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- EliRivers 10y ago"The decision on how to distribute profits is, theoretically, made by shareholders" I disagree strongly. When shareholders purchase their shares, the rights they get with it are clear. Very, very commonly, they do not include the right to set renumeration. Not theoretically. Not practically. Not at all. Non-voting stock very deliberately gives shareholders no power. "If somehow the shareholders were left out of this decision, via some authoritative action from the executives or something, it's wrong." I disagree very strongly. It is the job of the executives to make these decisions. Their first duty is not to shareholders, despite the pernicious myth that there's some kind of legal obligation to do the best for shareholders. Shareholders do not need to be consulted.
- martin_bech 10y ago"they’ve left their teeny 6 week old baby in nursery to pay the mortgage etc…" As someone living in Denmark, this really blows my mind. In no way should a 6 week old baby be in a nursery. Here the norm would be 6 months to a year before they see any kind of nursery/daycare.
- eob 10y agoWhen my wife and I took a birth class in Boston, the ice breaker was to go around and say who you were and how much time you had off once the baby came (ostensibly so the instructor could tailor her advice). After a long string of answers like "two weeks.. three weeks.. six weeks.. four weeks", the international parents in the group felt compelled to begin their introductions with an apology for numbers like six months, one year, two years... I've never been able to understand how a parent could advocate against European-style healthcare goals (implementation details left as an exercise for technocrats).
- overcast 10y agoBecause you'd have to advocate paying even more taxes, something Americans just do not want. Universal anything doesn't come out of thin air.
- sangnoir 10y ago> Because you'd have to advocate paying even more taxes, something Americans just do not want That's not how parental leave works. The employer is obligated (by law) to continue paying salaries for the stipulated period while the parent is on leave. The government doesn't shoulder the cost.
- infinite8s 10y agoThat's not true. There is no state or federal government that mandates paid family leave that has to be covered by the employer. The family leave act only mandates up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave.
- Florin_Andrei 10y ago> In no way should a 6 week old baby be in a nursery. It's the price you must pay for having so much Freedom (TM).
- phd514 10y agoIt's the price they pay for taking on a mortgage payment that can't be met on a single income.
- linkregister 10y agoI think that argument makes sense anywhere other than the Bay Area. CAP theorem for the Bay Area: Commute, Affordable, Protected (from crime). Choose two.
- phd514 10y agoSure, but living in the Bay Area, is a choice, too. And certainly a valid application of the CAP theorem. ;)
- linkregister 10y agoWell wouldn't that obviate one from working at NVidia? Sure, we could sidestep the CAP theorem by moving to Montana and living off the land. What does this have to do with TFA?
- vonmoltke 10y agoThey have a significant presence in Austin.
- Shebanator 10y agoI think its more like 'Choose one'
- tobz 10y agoOr the price they pay to take on any housing at all that doesn't put them multiple hours away from their job... :o
- overcast 10y agoCanada is an entire year for women. They take total advantage of it too. The women in our offices up North seemingly crank out a new kid almost as soon as they are back from the first one.
- magicalist 10y ago> The women in our offices up North seemingly crank out a new kid almost as soon as they are back from the first one Also known as "the women in our offices have kids". Only so many years to get that done.
- overcast 10y agoThree years paid off consecutively seems a bit abusive of the system though don't you think?
- msbarnett 10y agoI'd hardly consider having three children in the space of three years a 'vacation'. And that's a vanishingly small edgecase, anyways. It's a good system.
- overcast 10y agoNo where did I say it was a 'vacation'. However getting paid to stay home, and raise your children sounds like a better alternative to sitting in a cubicle all day. If it doesn't, then you probably shouldn't have kids.
- MichaelGG 10y agoSounds like a good thing for Canadians. Otherwise you end up with no citizens and have to do bulk-level importing which is difficult. A party in Germany recently proposed a E10K load, per child, up to 3. More kids meant you didn't have to pay off the loan. Sounds like a good way to help the birthrate. I think it was considered too racist to limit it to citizens.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- joshkpeterson 10y agoAt Doberman we were one of 12 creative firms in NYC who helped launch the US initiative Pledge Parental Leave to improve these benefits. http://www.pledgepl.org http://www.pledgepl.org
- tomjen3 10y agoThis fucking over everybody who isn't going to have children, can't have children or are die having children.
- learc83 10y agoThey can adopt and get the same 12 weeks away from work if they want to.
- Viper007Bond 10y agoThe American company I work for gives 24 weeks (6 months) of both maternity and paternity paid leave, more if you need it. As a single guy I'm a bit envious, but at least I get a 3 month paid sabbatical every 5 years plus unlimited time off. I'm surprised more companies don't do this.
- atonse 10y agoWhat exactly are you envious of? That those 6 months off are akin to a 6 month vacation? It's a full-time job. The smart business move would be to let people just take the time "off" and come back healthy and rested after a few months. Not sure why businesses don't see this obvious fact.
- serge2k 10y ago> That those 6 months off are akin to a 6 month vacation? It's a full-time job. Except I'm sitting in a little room all day staring at a computer, you're spending all day with your family and seeing your new child walk and talk for the first time. Gee, I wonder who has a more rewarding time.
- cookiecaper 10y agoNew children usually aren't walking or talking by six months. Providing for a family is very rewarding.
- atonse 10y agoYou think new parents sitting around laughing and taking pictures all day? hahahaha sorry, no. New parenting (infants) is about 5% photo-filled rewarding, 95% just repetitive work, cleaning up shit (literally), waking up every couple of hours, trying to keep it together with your spouse in stressful situations with very little sleep, and feeding this organism that will eventually have a personality and start interacting back. And that ratio gradually changes as they grow older. I remember after the first month, I used to consider going to the office my "break from parenting" because of its consistency and ability for my mind to just rest for a bit. Just remember when you're asking a parent of an infant to have a full-time job on top of parenting, you've essentially now got an employee that is splitting their time/attention/energy between two jobs. If you're ok with the altered productivity, then that's fine. But let's not fool ourselves.
- gaius 10y agoAnd if you don't want kids the consolation prize is lots of unpaid overtime covering for your fellow employees...
- lanius 10y agoHow much vacation time does Nvidia offer?
- farorm 10y agoWell if you like vacation or planning to have a child, you should get a job in Sweden. https://sweden.se/quickfact/parental-leave/ https://sweden.se/quickfact/parental-leave/
- CptMouse 10y agoBullshit. You don't have to be so defensive just because your country's policies suck and her people are brainwashed enough that "socialist" is an insult. But don't let me keep you from imposing your authoritah over Internet points.
- dang 10y agoWe've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines and detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12307725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12307725 and marked it off-topic. We usually refrain from doing that in response to an attack on us (as opposed to on other users), but that loophole isn't arbitrarily large.
- hatsunearu 10y agoAccording to NVIDIA's glassdoor, they have a thing where you can ask any time to take time off for any amount of time. It means you have to stress out about negotiation, according to reviews. This seems to be a stark contrast between the normal policy!