Google increases parental leave policy to nearly 6 months and adds more vacation time for employees in a boost to wellbeing benefits

• Google is boosting its benefits and offering employees more parental leave and vacation time.
• Employees will now get a minimum of 20 days vacation per year, up from 15 days.
• It’s also increasing parental leave to 18 weeks for all parents, and increasing caregiver leave to eight weeks.

Google is increasing parental leave and offering additional vacation time as part of an overhaul of its employee benefits.

The company announced on Thursday that it had expanded parental leave to 18 weeks for all parents (previously 12 weeks) and 24 weeks for parents who give birth (previously 18 weeks). As of April 2, it will also let employees take up to eight weeks of carer’s leave, doubling its previous allowance.

It is also increasing employees’ paid vacation time to a minimum of 20 days per year, up from 15 days, starting April 2. A Google spokesperson said all of the changes would apply to full-time employees globally.

Google has long been seen as a leader in employee benefits, especially when it comes to parental leave. But as remote work has taken away the free food and other in-office perks employees have come to expect, the company has searched for other ways to retain talent and prevent burnout.

Last year’s annual employee survey showed a decline in wellbeing, prompting the company to roll out additional benefits including more company-wide days off and employee bonuses (sometimes jokingly called “Sundar days” and “Sundar dollars” by employees, referring to CEO Sundar Pichai). 

“More than 40% of our employees are in the ‘sandwich generation,’ where they might find themselves both bringing up their children and caring for aging family members,” Fiona Cicconi, Google’s chief people officer, wrote in an emailed statement on Thursday.

“We want to support our employees at every stage of their lives and that means providing extraordinary benefits, so they can spend more time with their new baby, look after a sick loved one or take care of their own wellbeing. Today we’re announcing increases to our global leave benefits to ensure that parents and caregivers have more time to spend with their families and loved ones, and to encourage all Googlers to take more time for themselves, too.”

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