It’s no secret that the COVID pandemic accelerated a wave of retirements among older American workers. In 2021, the workforce participation rate for those aged 55 and over fell by nearly 2%, and retirees likely accounted for 2 million of the 3.5 million people missing from the labor force in 2022, according to Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
In an effort to hold onto older workers, who will account for at least 25% of the U.S. workforce by 2029, some employers have started offering a new benefit: grandparent leave, or paid time off to employees upon the birth or adoption of a grandchild.
Although it’s still rare, lending giant Fannie Mae, and Booking.com introduced the benefit in 2022. And other companies including job platform HireVue and small business workers’ compensation insurance brokerage firm EMPLOYERS have introduced it within the past few years. At Fannie Mae, employees receive one day of paid leave per year to meet a new grandchild or build relationships with current grandchildren. In the first half of 2023, 70 of the company’s 8,000 employees have taken grandparent leave, according to the company.
“It demonstrates our dedication to offering benefits for a very, very diverse group of employees at all different stages of life,” says Carrie Theisen, Fannie Mae’s vice president of total rewards. “And helps to support our mission and our commitment to family and community.”
Telecoms giant Cisco first introduced grandparent leave in 2017, after revamping its regular parental leave policy to be more gender inclusive, and offer more robust paid time off to caregivers.
Cisco employees receive three paid days within one year of the arrival of a new grandchild. Over 30% of Cisco’s roughly 40,000-strong U.S. employee base is over age 50, and grandparent leave is one of the most popular benefits with older employees, Ted Kezios, Cisco’s senior vice president of benefits, told Fortune. More than 800 U.S. employees have taken leave since the start of 2021, including nearly 200 who’ve used it so far this year.
“As we were looking at that, we said, ‘If you really want to create those moments that matter, especially around a new child being born or adopted, why don't you look at grandparents as well?” says Kezios.
‘I got to immerse myself’
Judie Williamson, a benefits consultant who’s worked at Cisco for seven years, first used her grandparent leave a few months after her grandson Anthony was born in December of 2017. Soon after her son-in-law returned to work, her daughter reached out for help with the new baby. “I just ran,” Williamson told Fortune. “Took the time off, and was there to take care of Anthony for her.”
Williamson used her leave again when her second grandson, Dominic, was born in 2020, and she’s planning to use it this year for a new grandchild due in August. Williamson lives near her daughter in California, and while she could simply visit on the weekend, she says there was something special about being able to get absorbed into her grandchildren’s lives for several days.
“It wasn't just the grandparents showing up after nap time when they're at their best,” she says about her leave. “I got to immerse myself into every inch of his life, staying there through the three days. When you’re there in this totality, you do see everything about your new little grandchild, just not spurts of time with them.”
Williamson says it’s important to her that Cisco recognizes this stage in an employee’s life, in addition to other major life experiences like the birth or adoption of a child. “We have to acknowledge that employees are working longer, and this particular event is going to happen more often, probably, than it did some decades ago,” she says.
Plus, it’s always rewarding to get excited responses to your out-of-office message informing colleagues that you’re on grandparent leave. “It's fun. It's really nice to work in that type of culture,” she says.
A bigger emphasis on flexibility
Grandparent leave may target a specific demographic, but workforce experts say it’s part of a larger trend of companies looking for new ways to hold onto employees by giving them more flexibility.
Organizations that focus on a well-being culture, including grandparent leave and other flexible time benefits, will have “the strongest people strategies to support a workforce, and [what] employees are going to want to see when choosing their next employer,” says Rebecca Starr, area president at insurance brokerage and consulting firm Arthur J. Gallagher’s HR consulting practice. As attracting and retaining top talent becomes an even higher priority for employers, she’s seeing her clients place more emphasis on offering lucrative benefits packages to employees.
A 2022 white paper from Gallagher found that some of the main drivers of worker retention right now are focused on work-life balance, including benefits aimed at work flexibility. And a January 2023 AARP survey of 2,000 respondents aged 40 and over found that, in addition to job stability and competitive pay, older employees consider workplace wellness benefits like paid leave or caregiving leave as a top requirement before accepting a job.
In addition to grandparent leave, Cisco offers employees a service that connects them and their families with a social worker, and up to four weeks of paid time off to deal with an unexpected emergency without requiring them to dip into their regular PTO bank, both introduced in the last two years. Similarly, Fannie Mae offers access to an elder care consultant who provides free services and resources to employees navigating care for an aging relative (or for themselves). The company has also expanded its paid family sick leave to 12 weeks this year. And several other companies have also started offering menopause benefits in recent years, including biotechnology company Genentech, Adobe, and computer chipmaker Nvidia.
“A lot of employers, as they start working through multiple generations in the workforce, are going to have to think about what flexibility means to them,” Kezios says. “How do you evolve and make sure that you're getting the right balance between what's best for your people, and also what's best for the company?”
