“Apple employees are getting a few new perks today (and no, its not free iPhone 6’s),” Michal Lev-Ram reports for Fortune. “On Thursday morning the company’s head of HR, Denise Young Smith, sent an employee-wide memo outlining a handful of new and updated benefits, including longer parental leave, education reimbursements for all classes taken by employees, an expanded donation-matching program, subsidized student loan refinancing and full acceleration of stock in the event of an employee’s death.”
“U.S. employees will now have a few more weeks of paid parental leave: Young Smith says expectant mothers can take up to four weeks before a delivery and upwards of 14 weeks after and expectant fathers (and other non-birth parents) can take six-week parental leaves. While the new policy is far from revolutionary, it shows that Apple gets that it needs to compete to recruit and retain talent,” Lev-Ram reports. “Most other large Silicon Valley firms have fairly similar rules for parental leave – though some, like payments company Square, offer more time off to both birth and non-birth parents. (And ultimately, the U.S. pales in comparison to most other countries, which have mandated maternity leave; Apple already abides by local rules in other countries.)”
“She is also toying with the idea of bringing back some sort of sabbatical program, though she prefers the term ‘renewal.’ After the late Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, he got rid of the company’s sabbatical plan, which let long-time employees take several months off of work every few years,” Lev-Ram reports. “Now, Young Smith says she’d like to find a way to bring back some form of lengthier vacation for certain employees.”
Read more in the full article here.
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