Why it matters : Many leading companies offer paid leave, but others need a push. History shows that when progressive companies require benefits or policies from their suppliers, it can help increase adoption. Microsoft's move alone will mean many thousands of new workers getting paid parental leave, as the company has more than 1,000 partners in the U.S.
In a move that could prompt more companies to offer paid parental leave, Microsoft is announcing today that it will require all of its U.S.-based suppliers and vendors with more than 50 employees to offer such benefits.
Some states already have laws offering or mandating paid parental leave, including California. Microsoft's home state of Washington has also enacted paid parental leave that will go into effect in 2020.
"As we looked at this legislation, however, we realized that while it will benefit the employees of our suppliers in Washington state, it will leave thousands of valued contributors outside of Washington behind," Microsoft general counsel Dev Stahlkopf said in a blog post. "So, we made a decision to apply Washington’s parental leave requirement more broadly, and not to wait until 2020 to begin implementation."
What they're saying: Activists praised the move, with the National Partnership for Women & Families VP Vicki Shabo calling it bold and impressive. "It showcases the ripple effects that state-level public policy changes — like Washington state's paid family and medical leave program adopted last year — can have in changing private sector practice and behavior," she said.
History lesson: It's not the first time Microsoft has required suppliers to offer specific benefits. Three years ago the company insisted that its partners offer full-time workers at least 15 days of paid time off each year.
BEEFTANK_Jr on August 30th, 2018 at 17:01 UTC »
I'm seeing a few comments in this thread that don't understand what this means by "suppliers and vendors."
Microsoft is not requiring the sellers of Microsoft products to have this policy.
When they refer to vendors, they mean companies that provide employees to do work that is too expensive for Microsoft to directly hire themselves. This is a very common arrangement in the larger corporate world. They do things such as customer service and other support/processing work where having the internal infrastructure to support hiring those people directly stops being cost effective.
There are also suggestions that those vendors would just fire people to get to 50, but that would never happen. Most Microsoft vendors are very large companies that specialize in providing outsourcing (including local to the US!) to large companies like Microsoft. They probably have more than 50 people at any one location while also having contracts at multiple locations.
There are also people who think this work would then just move out of the US. This is wrong for two reasons:
Other countries actually have maternity leave as law
Microsoft is a global operation and needs these kinds of employees in the US also. If a supplier moved their workforce to another country or time zone, Microsoft would just find someone else to do it. The BPO arena is pretty cutthroat and none of them have any problem cannibalizing another's contracts.
So the short of it is, the vendors are pretty much just going to have to do it.
Aww_Topsy on August 30th, 2018 at 15:33 UTC »
You know what move would really prompt more companies to offer paid parental leave? Legislation.
mcolston57 on August 30th, 2018 at 14:35 UTC »
Nice, I wish more people actually cared about families, instead of saying it and only actually caring about profits.