This is great. It sends the message that no matter who you are, prioritizing family over business is an option, especially when a newborn has arrived.
I'm also willing to bet that it's good for business. An employee with better relationships at home is more likely to be productive at work in the long term.
I had a sorta different reaction. I thought, it'd be amazing if everyone at Facebook had the option to take two months off for paternity leave and prioritize family over business without worrying about losing their job or good favor with their supervisor.
Doesn't facebook gives dads four months leave? the message here could be hey, taking the full leave might make you look like lazy, the boss only took two months.
IMHO a billionaire taking a two-month leave will not inspire a majority of the top 50 employers to allow their male workforce to take 2-months off. YMMV
I woukd say 2 months was little, so I'm not really impressed given he could take longer. Not because he is the chwif, but since their policy permits it
Zuck could take the rest of his life off work. And when he's an old man he will wish that he had. But in the mean time the share holders can benefit from his keen.
I am jealous. My mega-large, hyphenated corporation only gives 40 hours. Which I have just had approved (today!) so that I could help care for my newborn son while my wife recovers from caesarian section. Doing this required multiple calls to a third party company that hypenated-corporation has subcontracted their leave and disability claims to, as well as about 30 pages worth of paperwork. I spent about half as much time coordinating all this as the amount of leave that I'll get.
My point is: even if Zuckerberg only takes half the time he gives to everyone else he's still being very generous to himself as compared to what happens in much of corporate America. I am willing to bet that going on leave like this is probably easier at Facebook, as well.
Wow. My wife had a section with our first, 2 months early, with some weeks in the NICU afterwards. I had absolutely no inkling that recovery would be so hard for my wife; I'd always heard "too posh to push" and thought she was getting the easy way out! It's a brutal surgery and she struggled to do basic things for weeks. Fortunately I worked for a small firm at the time, directly for the CEO, and whatever our HR policy was didn't matter as I was given essentially free reign to manage my time and work from home as needed. I was able to be largely absent for weeks, going to the office when she had help at home.
You have my heartfelt sympathy. 40hrs is pathetic, insulting, and the process for you to get it is frankly dehumanizing. Fortunately those scumbags will pale into insignificance as you get to know your son.
FYI you can probably take 12 weeks unpaid leave, as guaranteed by FMLA. I'm guessing your employer would exercise the option to pay out vacation time concurrently. To take FMLA requires nothing more than telling your boss you need time off to take care of a newborn (or any other valid reason), so it's not too late. They can make you fill out paperwork but denying the leave if it's valid is illegal. You're guaranteed to have your job when you come back.
(Edit: note to others reading this who work at startups--employers with < 50 employees don't need to follow FMLA)
FWIW, at Facebook you still have to deal with some ugly B2B system to report your leave. "Matrix e-systems". Apparently the nest of laws that cover leave is complicated enough that you basically have to hire someone to handle compliance. Everyone (male or female) gets 4 months though, which is quite nice and makes it worth navigating through this janky form-filling.
The point is --- there was no real need to even mention this on an FB post! the CEO is also an employee and he could have done this more privately.
I hate it when top CEOs try to prove that love "work-life" balance when in reality once you reach the top, its always easy to do the "right thing" in any circumstance.
If she would have been pregnant when he just started FB, then would have taken more than 2 days off?
The point is --- there was no real need to even mention this on an FB post! the CEO is also an employee and he could have done this more privately.
He could have, but doing this publicly sets an example. There are a lot of companies where employees are officially allowed to take leave but in practice face disdain from their coworkers if they do; having the CEO publicly take such a leave helps to provide social license to everybody else in the company.
> the CEO is also an employee and he could have done this more privately
Nope. One, it is impossible for somebody of his prominence to take two months off work and not have it be noticed. And two, his point here isn't to take two months off. It's to signal to every one of his employees that it's ok.
One of my current boss's best habits is going home on time. And occasionally he'll go home early when he's worn down and unproductive, saying, "Man, I'm not getting anything useful done; I'm going to go home now." Not only is this a smart thing for anybody to do, but it's great in a boss because it gives everybody implicit permission to do the same when necessary.
I don't think what you're saying reflects reality. Anyone who is responsible for making payroll is experiencing a kind of pressure that most people will never know.
"United Continental Holdings Inc's (UAL.N) new chief executive has suffered a heart attack, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday, barely a month after he took on the job of improving the airline's profitability and reputation."
If company executives behave like workaholics, it raises the pressure on everyone in the company to also be workaholics. IMO they have a duty to demonstrate work-life balance.
Quite. Just like when the CEO of Yahoo banned working from home, and then had a fully equipped nursery built in the office next to her for the exclusive use of her kids and their full-time nanny.
It's great that he's taking two months, but count me with those who think he should take more. I took three months of maternity leave with my youngest, and honestly that last month was a really good deal for my employer. I used to say they were paying me to stay out of the codebase. I felt fine, and if I'd had to go back to work I could have, but between the sleep deprivation and the distractions of having a newborn around, I was pretty cognitively impaired. They'd probably still be finding bugs in the code I wrote that month.
I have a couple of friends who became parents and decided to take it in chunks rather than a full 4 months. They had a bit of support from in laws, so as a manager he came back after 1 month to ship a release, then wife and husband would alternate so there would be always one parent at home full time while the other worked.
The fact this is front page news on multiple outlets , and a pile of cynical comments here, underscores how weird America is with attitudes around "paid insurance benefits", whether healthcare, vacation, and parental leave.
Unlimited vacation policies are intended to make people act more like Canada or Europe where 4-6 weeks paid vacation is common. Most civilized countries have employer benefits plans that cover most of your salary as a parent for 12-16 weeks, and by the government (up to ~$50k annually) for 52 weeks shared between parents.
Mark is doing what most Dads do, and it's a good example.
Ugh. I'm not trying to be super negative, but he's setting a bad precedent by taking half the amount of allowed leave. "We offer 4 months, but Zuck only took 2. Wanna be like Zuck?" He should take the full 4 months and show everyone that it's OK.
This is like the unspoken mantra of "unlimited vacation" really being only 2 - 2.5 weeks.
At Google it was pretty common for new fathers to take half of the allotted leave at the baby's birth and then save up the remaining half to use for emergencies, vacations, or milestones over the next year. (You could bank paternity leave for up to 1 year at the time; it may be more now, since IIUC Google increased paternity leave from 6 weeks to 6 months around when I left.) So for example, if your wife needed to go to a conference or had a heavy workload at her job, you could take leave to cover the baby. Or if you wanted to take the kid to visit grandparents/great-grandparents, you could use up paternity leave instead of vacation time.
As I understand it, the maternity/paternity leave at Facebook can be taken at any time. He could return to work after the initial 2 months, and later take more time off, up to a total of 4 months.
It must be tough being the CEO of facebook. This is his own company which I'm sure he loves running and wants to continue to do so. But he's in a situation where the social and political climate basically dictates that he take paternity leave. The same climate also dictates that if he takes any less than the full amount, he's sending a message that the whole four months is a gesture of goodwill and you should only take half of that. If he takes an entire four months, he probably gets criticized for being lazy and for not making the board their money. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.
> This is like the unspoken mantra of "unlimited vacation" really being only 2 - 2.5 weeks.
I think it depends on your company and management chain. When I worked at Netflix I took more vacation than every before. I'm not even sure how much, since it was untracked, but definitely more than 4 weeks a year.
Our management made sure to set a good example by taking plenty of vacation.
Or how about just taking a full year off. The guy is worth billions and basically never has to work again. He is also not the Steve Jobs of FB either. It's not like he massively contributes on a day to day level. What's the point of being so rich if you can't spend some time with your kid and wife.
Future dads out there, look into this. My wife and I split the year of unemployment-insurance-covered leave (half your salary if your salary is mediocre, and that's the cap) here in Canada and it was the best decision of my life. I got 7 months of full time dad duty in and it changed me.
My company and her school both offered a modest top-up on the government's parental leave benefit, so splitting the year meant we got to double-dip our employee benefits.
So it's not just good family building, it's also good financial sense. It's also the best way to fight the pay gap - an employer wonders which of his female employees will vanish for a year or so. This way, everybody leaves for 6 months or so.
That's basically the same model as here in Sweden. And i agree the biggest win is for the pay gap for women. Employers don't really discriminate as either sex could disappear soon. Employers don't take a big pay hit either, as it's social insurance that pays while you're off.
I have experienced a change in mindset regarding vacations, when I was an employee of a large corp vs now that I am entrepreneur.
Earlier when I was an employee I used to look forward to weekends/holidays/vacations. Not so now. The idea of being away from work for months is unthinkable for me. Local radio on Monday morning has an RJ invariably commenting on Monday-morning-blues. Luckily, I can't relate to that feeling anymore.
Not trying to paint ultra-rosy picture of being a business owner. It does have ups and downs, and it being a roller-coaster ride is well documented by many.
But whatever stage (highs/lows) you may be in. Typically, its hard to keep yourself away from work. Maximum duration of a vacation, I have taken in past 8-9 years, is around a week, and the median is typically 3-4 days.
At the same time, I do understand responsibility towards family. So if somebody needs to do it, I appreciate that, and definitely see myself also doing, but obviously don't wish for it.
I can't believe that in the US, paternity/maternity leave is something that is left for 'the market to decide'. I was hoping for Marissa Mayer to lead and set the example for maternity leave... but she took two weeks... I couldn't really believe it, I was pretty disappointed. In my eyes what she did, sent a pretty sad message for women, her employees, and other companies.
I think Mark taking two weeks off, is an example, for everyone. His employees (male, female, etc) and other companies. Hey, maybe even the Government can learn from this.
Excellent! Good for Mark, and better for the world. The average privacy invasion perpetrated by megacorps will hopefully be falling slightly over the next two months.
It's a very personal choice for everyone, as Mark points out. That said, I believe the first 2 months are not always the most interesting for a father, nor when the most helpful. First 2 weeks sure!
After that, if you stay home doing emails, maybe you should go back to work for real, and keep some time for later in the year...
Whatever you say about Zuck, this is a nice post. Down to earth, real, warm. I also can't help but appreciate the non-prevalence of designer stuff and furniture everywhere in the photo, despite his net worth. Thanks Zuck. You've nicely wrong-footed all the "robot" charges. My your family and child be happy, healthy, and fulfilled.
I think it's the right thing to do. If you don't take everything he does upside down, this can't possibly be bad. I believe he chose the number wisely without making it too short, which would send a message across taking a full leave is not such a good idea, or making it too long only reminding everyone that he is the one.
It's nice that he is setting a good example but what's really impressive about this is that he has managed to get fb into a state where him taking two months off is actually possible. How many other large company CEOs could do that without a lot of things going wrong?
[+] [-] acangiano|10 years ago|reply
I'm also willing to bet that it's good for business. An employee with better relationships at home is more likely to be productive at work in the long term.
[+] [-] wobbleblob|10 years ago|reply
If I were in his shoes, I'd sell my shares in that website, take a few years off and then go a little Bill Gates, a little Elon Musk.
I guess this is why I'm not a successful businessman.
[+] [-] oneJob|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sanoli|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SCAQTony|10 years ago|reply
1) Wal-Mart Stores 2,200,000 2) Yum! Brands 523,000 3) McDonald's 440,000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers_in_t...
IMHO a billionaire taking a two-month leave will not inspire a majority of the top 50 employers to allow their male workforce to take 2-months off. YMMV
[+] [-] joosters|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Lagged2Death|10 years ago|reply
"Prioritizing family over business" would be, say, 30-to-40-hour work weeks - or even just staying home, period - for the next 12-to-18 years.
[+] [-] toredash|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] x5n1|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] engi_nerd|10 years ago|reply
My point is: even if Zuckerberg only takes half the time he gives to everyone else he's still being very generous to himself as compared to what happens in much of corporate America. I am willing to bet that going on leave like this is probably easier at Facebook, as well.
[+] [-] scrumper|10 years ago|reply
You have my heartfelt sympathy. 40hrs is pathetic, insulting, and the process for you to get it is frankly dehumanizing. Fortunately those scumbags will pale into insignificance as you get to know your son.
[+] [-] logn|10 years ago|reply
(Edit: note to others reading this who work at startups--employers with < 50 employees don't need to follow FMLA)
[+] [-] scurvy|10 years ago|reply
http://www.edd.ca.gov/disability/FAQ_PFL_Benefits.htm
[+] [-] lacker|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peter303|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dimdimdim|10 years ago|reply
I hate it when top CEOs try to prove that love "work-life" balance when in reality once you reach the top, its always easy to do the "right thing" in any circumstance.
If she would have been pregnant when he just started FB, then would have taken more than 2 days off?
[+] [-] cperciva|10 years ago|reply
He could have, but doing this publicly sets an example. There are a lot of companies where employees are officially allowed to take leave but in practice face disdain from their coworkers if they do; having the CEO publicly take such a leave helps to provide social license to everybody else in the company.
[+] [-] wpietri|10 years ago|reply
Nope. One, it is impossible for somebody of his prominence to take two months off work and not have it be noticed. And two, his point here isn't to take two months off. It's to signal to every one of his employees that it's ok.
One of my current boss's best habits is going home on time. And occasionally he'll go home early when he's worn down and unproductive, saying, "Man, I'm not getting anything useful done; I'm going to go home now." Not only is this a smart thing for anybody to do, but it's great in a boss because it gives everybody implicit permission to do the same when necessary.
[+] [-] droopybuns|10 years ago|reply
"United Continental Holdings Inc's (UAL.N) new chief executive has suffered a heart attack, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday, barely a month after he took on the job of improving the airline's profitability and reputation."
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/16/us-unitedairlines-...
[+] [-] mvc|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gaius|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ksenzee|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nojvek|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] parasubvert|10 years ago|reply
Unlimited vacation policies are intended to make people act more like Canada or Europe where 4-6 weeks paid vacation is common. Most civilized countries have employer benefits plans that cover most of your salary as a parent for 12-16 weeks, and by the government (up to ~$50k annually) for 52 weeks shared between parents.
Mark is doing what most Dads do, and it's a good example.
[+] [-] scurvy|10 years ago|reply
This is like the unspoken mantra of "unlimited vacation" really being only 2 - 2.5 weeks.
[+] [-] nostrademons|10 years ago|reply
Zuck may be doing something similar.
[+] [-] evincarofautumn|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoorayimhelping|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] immad|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jedberg|10 years ago|reply
I think it depends on your company and management chain. When I worked at Netflix I took more vacation than every before. I'm not even sure how much, since it was untracked, but definitely more than 4 weeks a year.
Our management made sure to set a good example by taking plenty of vacation.
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] x0054|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mentos|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Pxtl|10 years ago|reply
My company and her school both offered a modest top-up on the government's parental leave benefit, so splitting the year meant we got to double-dip our employee benefits.
So it's not just good family building, it's also good financial sense. It's also the best way to fight the pay gap - an employer wonders which of his female employees will vanish for a year or so. This way, everybody leaves for 6 months or so.
[+] [-] jamesblonde|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SilasX|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] plg|10 years ago|reply
35 weeks
http://www.servicecanada.gc.ca/eng/ei/types/maternity_parent...
PS this is the minimum (through the government) many companies provide more (e.g. 1 year)
[+] [-] ps4fanboy|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aws_ls|10 years ago|reply
Earlier when I was an employee I used to look forward to weekends/holidays/vacations. Not so now. The idea of being away from work for months is unthinkable for me. Local radio on Monday morning has an RJ invariably commenting on Monday-morning-blues. Luckily, I can't relate to that feeling anymore.
Not trying to paint ultra-rosy picture of being a business owner. It does have ups and downs, and it being a roller-coaster ride is well documented by many.
But whatever stage (highs/lows) you may be in. Typically, its hard to keep yourself away from work. Maximum duration of a vacation, I have taken in past 8-9 years, is around a week, and the median is typically 3-4 days.
At the same time, I do understand responsibility towards family. So if somebody needs to do it, I appreciate that, and definitely see myself also doing, but obviously don't wish for it.
Perhaps many others here, may feel similarly.
[+] [-] MrGando|10 years ago|reply
I can't believe that in the US, paternity/maternity leave is something that is left for 'the market to decide'. I was hoping for Marissa Mayer to lead and set the example for maternity leave... but she took two weeks... I couldn't really believe it, I was pretty disappointed. In my eyes what she did, sent a pretty sad message for women, her employees, and other companies.
I think Mark taking two weeks off, is an example, for everyone. His employees (male, female, etc) and other companies. Hey, maybe even the Government can learn from this.
TD;LR, glad Mark did this. Kudos.
[+] [-] throwaway_1003|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bisRepetita|10 years ago|reply
After that, if you stay home doing emails, maybe you should go back to work for real, and keep some time for later in the year...
Not a universal truth, but I liked the love curve over time here: https://www.ted.com/talks/rufus_griscom_alisa_volkman_let_s_...
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] cdnsteve|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vegabook|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] handrake|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesm|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trynumber9|10 years ago|reply
He's managed to make his paternity leave a PR opportunity. Acute.
[+] [-] david_mitchell|10 years ago|reply