Spotify Offers 6 Months Parental Leave for Both Mothers and Fathers

Spotify announced its new global parental leave policy, to support all staff with families anywhere in the world. All full time employees of Spotify are elligible to up to six months parental leave with 100% payment.

According to Time Magazine, new parents can take advantage of the policy until their child's third birthday. Time also mentioned similar policy Netflix provide for its employees. Netflix announced in 2015 that it would offer unlimited paid parental leave during the first year of child's life. In Spotify's new policy, parents are encouraged to take the leave and Spotify also says it will help with their transition back to work by giving them more ability to work from home or with flexible hours.

Regarding the policy as Time reported, Chief Human Resource Officer of Spotify, Katerina Berg said, "This policy best defines who we are as a company, born out of a Swedish culture that places an emphasis on a healthy work/family balance, gender equality, and the ability for every parent to spend quality time with the people that matter most in their lives,"

Spotify is a commercial music streaming, podcast and video service company based in Sweden. Its service is available in North America, as well as South America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand. It support multiple client from smartphones, smart TV to game console, ranging from Android, iOS, Windows Phone, PlayStation 4 and 3, Samsung Smart TV, and TiVo as well. Founded in 2006, Spotify runs its commercial operation from London headquarter, and Stockholm's headquarter as its research and development center. Currently, Spotify has more than 20 million subscribers in the areas where its service is available.

Fortune took note of how Swedish as country sets the bar high on work/life balance. Sweden is considered to have the fourth-lowest economic gender gap in the world, and is consistently ranked among the best countries for new mothers. Currently, the government mandates three months paid leave for both mothers and fathers, and additional 10 months that can be taken by either parent. Fortune also compare how U.S. does not mandate any parental leave for fathers, and only three months unpaid leave for mothers.

CNN Money put an emphasize on how Spotify policy is also applied to parents who opt for adoption or surrogacy. CNN Money also praised other tech companies in the U.S. that have recently upped their family benefits, Microsoft, Adobe and Amazon. All of which give five to six month leave for new mothers and less for fathers, one to three months of paid leave. In that matters, Spotify is the only one that treated both parents equally.

The paid parental leave for employees will benefit both company and its employees for a balance between work and life. As Spotify mention the parental leave applied for both mothers and fathers as well.