In 2019, we refreshed our benefits to give employees more flexibility and accountability to manage their work and lives. As employees become parents, care for a loved one, grieve a loss, or volunteer in their community, we want to make sure they have the time they need when they need it. So we expanded the definition of “a loved one” to include any person of emotional significance to our employees, whether connected by blood or by heart. In other words, MassMutual doesn’t define who our employees’ loved ones are. They do.
In line with expanding the definition of a loved one, we also expanded our fertility and gender affirmation benefits and enhanced coverage and support services for people dealing with a cancer diagnosis.
To support our working parents, we significantly increased our parental leave to eight weeks fully paid within 12 months of the child’s birth or placement for adoption. Recognizing the recovery time needed after having a child, people who give birth now receive 10 consecutive weeks of paid maternity leave after childbirth plus the additional eight weeks of parental leave for a total of 18 paid weeks. We also added two additional weeks of paid leave that employees can use to care for a loved one suffering from a serious health condition.
Just as new parents require time to bond with their children, we recognize that all of us grieve the loss of a loved one differently. Different relationships have different impacts on our lives. And when it comes to losing someone we love, there’s no precise formula for how long we need to grieve before coming back to work. That’s why we expanded our bereavement time to up to 15 days of paid time off to grieve the loss of a loved one. Employees can decide how much of that time they need to use.
