A Look at the Netflix Parental Leave Policy

Let’s pretend for a minute that I didn’t think a parent’s time with an infant was super important.

Let’s also pretend that I didn’t think parents spending time with their young kids is a moral imperative.

Let’s just pretend I’m a pure capitalist who cares about making money and nothing else.

If I were such a person, I’d be happy that Netflix just announced an amazing parental leave policy that offers “unlimited” paid time off for parents during the first year of their child’s life.

Why? Well, it’s good for business.

In my opinion, moms generally get treated like garbage in the workforce. Every day, moms face the awful choice of having to choose between having a career and spending time with their children. Not only do I believe that’s a false choice, but also I think it’s a bad one for companies and society at large.

I’ve found that if I treat an employee with dignity and compassion during their times of hardship that they become more loyal and hardworking than ever. Not only that, if I treat them well, they tend to stick around longer, which means I have to spend less time finding and training replacements. I also don’t lose all of the institutional knowledge that evaporates when a mom decides to stay at home rather than be apart from her three month old.

And I’ve seen this with my wife. Her company, Premier Inc, has treated her remarkably well since we’ve had children. Not only is she rabidly loyal to them, her husband is as well because she’s seen how great they’ve treated her over the past few years.

What Netflix has done is awesome. I suspect it’s a start of a trend — companies will realize that they’ll need to offer similar benefits to maintain their best workers and stay competitive with their peers. It’s a long road ahead, but things are looking brighter than ever for new moms.

Thanks for being so bold Netflix… your share price rose to a new high the day of this announcement, so even the capitalists on Wall Street seem to think this is a great move.

This piece was originally posted at VersaMe.com. VersaMe created the Starling the world’s first wearable engagement tracker that helps encourage and reinforce positive parenting behaviors.