Haute 100: Daniel Ek Announces New Paternity Leave Policy for Spotify Employees

This has officially been the year of progress in Silicon Valley. A number of companies, like Netflix, have improved their maternity and paternity leave policies. The latest to improve its paternity leave policy is the digital music streaming service Spotify.

The news was officially released during a presentation streamed to all of its internal offices on Thursday, Nov. 18^th. “We don’t want to be just a Google or a Facebook; we want to be a Spotify,” Daniel Ek said from a stage in Stockholm. “At the end of the day, what’s going to make us succeed is all of you guys.”

Following the announcement, the company’s chief human resources officer, Katarina Berg, had a conversation with senior presidential adviser, Valerie Jarrett, at Spotify’s New York City office.

Spotify also released an update to the company’s new policy via a press release. It reads, “Spotify is growing up fast and the team’s responsibilities at home and at work are growing with us. With this in mind, today we’re introducing a new, global, parental leave policy, developed to support all of our staff with families, wherever they are in the world.”

Effective Thursday:

• All full-time Spotify employees will be offered up to six months’ parental leave with 100 percent pay.
• Parents will be able to take their leave up to the child’s third birthday, with all Spotify employees who had children from the beginning of 2013 also eligible for the benefit.
• Mothers and fathers are encouraged to take the full time off, with the added flexibility of splitting their leave into separate periods.
• We also know that following a period of parental leave, the transition back to work can be tricky. So we’re including a one month ‘Welcome Back!’ program, allowing returning team members to ease back into their job with the ability to work from home, on a part time schedule and with flexible hours.

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