This recently published Bloomberg news article discusses why the owners of an Oregon-based restaurant franchise decided to give their employees paid parental leave and why it’s a move canny executives will want to replicate. The CEO of Laughing Planet Café, which operates 14 restaurants in Oregon and Nevada, made the decision to give all of his 280 employees three months of paid parental leave.
For a business operating in the hospitality sector, this was an almost unprecedented move as only 6 percent of US service workers have paid time off benefits.
The reason behind this paradigmatic shift? CEO and owner Franz Spielvogel was inspired by Pres. Obama’s recent decision to give all federal workers six weeks off of paid sick leave. More pragmatically, Spielvogel realized that three months off of paid parental leave is such an unheard of benefit within hospitality that it provides a unique incentive to all of his current and future employees.
And, when he ran the numbers, he found that the paid parental leave would cost him less on average than training new staff. Given that Millennial workers have evidenced a much greater focus on the work-life balance than any generation before them, executives who wish to cultivate a culture of excellence within their companies would be wise to follow Spielvogel’s lead.
Read the full article here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-23/the-laughing-planet-caf-paid-maternity-leave
