Time Off: Paternity Leave and Vacation Time

Anthony LoPinto

More companies offer new fathers more paid time off to spend with their new baby and mom. The rub is that companies are having a hard time persuading dads to take advantage of the offer. The Wall Street Journal reported recently that Deloitte surveyed more than 1,000 US workers and one-in-three said they worried that taking time off would jeopardize their careers, and more than half said that if they used the parental-leave benefits available to them it would be seen as a lack of commitment to the job.

In another study by researchers at Ball State University and Ohio State found that only 14% of fathers who take leave do so for more than 2 weeks. I found this interesting because there are clearly historical biases that influence the failure to take advantage of paternity leave benefits, but it is also a more significant issue. In the US taking time off is a challenge for executives because most expect that he or she will remain online, and time off beyond a week is often a real or perceived challenge. We should take a page from the European script where holidays are a given and embraced by management.