Should you require your working dads to take paternity leave? Maven’s SVP of people says yes

No parent has gone unaffected by the stressors of the past few years. But for working dads, the pressure to hide the strain is taking an additional toll. 

While the pandemic has disproportionately impacted working women and mothers, their partners are in need of support, too, says Karsten Vagner, SVP of people at Maven, a family benefits provider. Since the start of COVID, 82% of fathers said they could have used more emotional support, according to a survey by the American Psychological Association. 

“We could probably spend a lot of time talking about this feeling that dads have around what they should do or not do, or feel or not feel,” Vagner says. “As employers, we can either perpetuate what I think is a broken system, or we can examine it and try to fix it.” 

Read more: Here’s how employers can help stave off parental guilt post-pandemic

Vagner says that starts with benefits — namely, parental and paternity leave policies. While nine out of 10 fathers take some time off after the birth of a child, 70% take less than 10 days, according to data from the Department of Labor. This sets the tone that a father doesn’t need to be as involved in their family, or that work should play a more important role. 

That’s a stereotype that needs to end, Vager says. He shares how Maven is supporting working fathers and all parents by requiring them to take parental leave, and how he’s navigating these challenging times as a leader himself in a recent conversation with Employee Benefit News. 

COVID has been really challenging for working parents, and we’re all super focused on the moms, which we need to be, but what are some of the things impacting working dads and other caregivers that might be overlooked? 
How much time do you have? We could probably spend a lot of time talking about this feeling that dads have around what they should do or not do, or feel or not feel. We recently launched a report that found that working fathers only take 30-50% of the leave that they're given when they become dads. Pair that with this notion that if you're a primary caregiver, you get robust leave, whereas if you're a secondary caregiver, maybe you get two weeks or four weeks. That sends a message that dads don't have to do that much, or shouldn't have to do that much. Then who ends up suffering the most? Mom, who's left at home alone. So it starts there. 

Also, dads often feel like, OK, I have 16 weeks of leave, but I don’t need to take that; I’ll be bored, or the business won’t survive without me. There are just a lot of outdated symptoms of a culture that we should really be examining. We need to make sure we're tailoring our messages to all of our employees and making sure that spaces that may not have felt like they were for everyone start to feel like they are for everyone. 

It's so important to have that sense that we're all in this together and these benefits are for all. But could it be beneficial to single out men and say, we have paternity leave, and you should take it?  
When it comes to parental leave and paternity leave in particular, I think employers have a responsibility to tell their employees that they have to take it. But saying that only goes so far — employers have to model that behavior as well. There are too many male CEOs that you see not taking any time off, and what message does that send? I’ll look weak. I’ll look soft. So employers need to set the tone that we encourage and require you to take the time to go support your family. 

Read more: A social media campaign is starting a nationwide conversation about paid family leave

We know that if things are good at home, things can be good at work. So it's actually in my best interest as the head of people to make sure that none of my employees are up at night stressing about how they will take care of their kid. We can take care of that and we should. 

How are you practicing what you preach for your team at Maven? 
Personally, if you ask anybody who works with me, what they hear the most is, it’s ok to not be ok right now. I have made it something of a mission to make sure that we are acknowledging the world around us and calling out the anxiety and the stress, calling out the headlines that we're all reading, and saying, “I know how this must be weighing on you and your family. I want to acknowledge it and I want to call it out and say it's weighing on me too. We're thinking about this.” Then we can start a conversation about what you need and how we can support you.

What does a perfect world for working dads and caregivers look like to you? Do you think it’s possible? 
I'd love to see our government provide parental leave to all parents. I think the way you can do that is look at what a birthing parent needs medically, and start there as table stakes for everyone else. Then we need to make sure that we're being really equitable and inclusive in terms of how we define parents and then make that something that’s paid for by the government.  

That's what we're trying to do with Maven. We celebrate our parents. We made it very clear that there are all different paths of parenthood and we set a leave policy that is for everyone. Our employees know that you have to take the leave, and you can do it in the way that makes the most sense for your family. You can break it up in your first year, if that makes the most sense. We don’t have people who say, Oh, I know I have 16 weeks, but I'm only going to take two. That's not going to fly. That's not fair to your family, and your family comes first. And I don't want to keep this to ourselves. So what's next is to take what we've learned and help make other companies better places to work for parents, too.