Advocates are pushing for the University of Georgia to broaden its employee benefits concerning parental leave, which they say could improve the school’s chances of recruiting and retaining high-quality faculty and staff.
An advisory council will vote on a measure Wednesday that would recommend eight weeks of paid leave to male and female employees after the birth or adoption of a child, as well as allow faculty to modify their duties for a semester after having a child or meeting other circumstances.
The vote is not binding, but supporters say the change is necessary to keep the state's flagship institution competitive with universities and colleges outside Georgia, as well as to keep or attract top talent. While the discussion plays out here, nationally, President Barack Obama tackled the issue earlier this year in a June editorial calling for the need for more family-friendly workplace policies.
It is unclear how many faculty and staff members the policies would affect, with the number of employees looking to have or adopt children being unknown. Overall, UGA's workforce numbers almost 9,900 employees, including faculty, staff, administrators, technical and maintenance workers as of August, according to the school.
While the University Council’s action would not change the school’s policies, supporters say now is the time to encourage administrators to focus on the issue.
“I think it’s more important now for attracting and retaining the best employees,” said Brenda Keen, the chairwoman of the council’s human resources committee. “With the budget cuts over the past several years, UGA has slid in employee pay rankings for faculty and staff. It’s frustrating to see people leaving when things like this could make UGA a better place to work than what it already is.”
If the council approves the plan, it would be presented to UGA administration as a recommendation to its human resources policies. The school could likely implement the schedule modifications on its own, but changes to the paid leave policy would have to also be reviewed by the University System of Georgia, Keen said.
UGA officials and the University System offered no comment on the proposal in advance of Wednesday’s vote.
Employees receive up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave through the federal Family Medical Leave Act, but there is no leave available guaranteeing pay. The University System uses the FMLA provision — which pertains to companies with 50 or more employees — in outlining leave for employees at its 31 institutions. The salary loss varies, just as employee wages vary. For the 2012-2013 academic year, salaries of UGA's instructional faculty ranged from $76,200 for assistant professors to $109,400 for professors, according to the school's 2013 fact book.
Employees can also use a collection of accrued annual and sick leave, time off that comes with compensation. But the lack of a parental plan offering guaranteed pay has caused the university to lose several prime female recruits, some faculty members say.
“A lot of universities do have family leave policies nowadays. They recognize that the way to attract and keep young faculty, both female and male, is to have some kind of systematic family leave policy, and that is encouraged with the federal government with the FMLA,” said Anita Levy,a senior program officer at the American Association of University Professors.
In a survey on health care and benefits released this year, 24 percent of higher education institutions reported offering paid leave for new parents (up to six weeks median), according to the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. The survey represented 601 institutions.
The issue of paid parental leave is not new for UGA. Employees there have tried for years to get some sort of policy implemented guaranteeing paid leave — mainly maternity leave. The current and previous University Councils have researched various policies at other institutions looking for best practices, said Janet Frick, an associate psychology professor and council member.
“Some universities have figured it out. Others are in the same situation we are, without a consistent policy throughout the whole university,” she said. “There are some departments that come up with creative solutions, but others don’t.”
The universities of Florida, Maryland and Virginia were found to have paid parental leave available to eligible employees, the council’s human resources committee found, and the University of South Carolina implemented a modified duty policy in 2007 that the council recommended as a model.
The work being done by the council on this issue is almost like a societal problem, Keen said. The United States gives “a lot of lip service” to family values, but it really does not have the actual family-friendly policies in place to help with those values, she said.
With Wednesday’s vote being only a request for UGA administrators to try to work out a solution, Keen is hopeful the measure will pass.
“I can’t see any downside to asking,” she said.
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