Marissa Mayer is trying to repair Yahoo’s image by upgrading benefits for working parents.
On Tuesday, Yahoo announced a revised paid leave policy for new parents, more than doubling the time, in some cases, that employees with babies are able to take off. The new benefit comes after Yahoo spurred a nationwide debate over family-friendly work policies when it banned working from home in February.
Ms. Mayer, Yahoo’s chief executive, has said that attracting talented workers is crucial for the company’s turnaround. Lavish benefits are a ubiquitous weapon in Silicon Valley’s talent wars, and since she arrived at Yahoo last year, she has showered employees with perks including new phones and free food.
So it was a surprise when the company rescinded a major benefit by instituting a policy that employees could no longer work from home, which it said would boost productivity and morale. Ms. Mayer’s own very short maternity leave shortly after she joined the company only added to doubts that Yahoo was a welcoming place for working parents, as did her comments that having a baby was easy and reports that she built a nursery next to her office.
Of course, Ms. Mayer’s child care resources are not those of ordinary working parents. The company also said Tuesday that it paid Ms. Mayer $36.6 million last year, after hiring her in July, most of that sum in the form of stock options that have not yet vested. It said executive compensation was closely tied to performance. Yahoo’s shares are up 56 percent since she was hired.
Ms. Mayer was pregnant when she was appointed chief executive, and that quickly made her a poster child for working parents. The extra attention also generated a greater level of scrutiny of the company’s human resources decisions.
With the new parental leave policy, first reported by NBC Bay Area, Yahoo is signaling support for working parents. Mothers who give birth receive 16 weeks paid leave, more than double what they previously got in most cases. New fathers and mothers who have a child through adoption, surrogacy or foster care receive eight weeks.
New parents also receive $500 to spend on things like food and child care after a new baby comes home, which Yahoo calls “daily habits reimbursement,†a nod to Ms. Mayer’s strategy of convincing people to turn to Yahoo products for daily habits like e-mail.
And Yahoo is not forgetting employees without children. New pets will receive Yahoo-branded products, as will babies. And for every five years that employees work at the company, they will receive an eight-week, unpaid sabbatical.
Yahoo’s policy is considerably more generous than most companies in the United States, where paid parental leave lags far behind other developed nations. But it is not quite as competitive as that of Ms. Mayer’s former employer, Google, which offers about five months of paid leave for mothers, seven weeks for fathers and $500 for baby expenses.
“We’ve been very focused on making Yahoo the best place to work,†Sara Gorman, a Yahoo spokeswoman, said in a statement. “Recently, we introduced some new and improved benefits to support the happiness and well-being of Yahoos and their families.â€
