Duke Energy offering 6 weeks paid parental leave

CHARLOTTE, NC (WWAY) – Duke Energy for the first time is offering its employees fully paid parental leave – totaling six weeks – a move they say will bolster work-family balance and help attract and retain highly skilled workers.

Under Duke Energy’s new benefit, which is available to both mothers and fathers, an employee can start the six-week paid leave any time within the first 16 weeks after the birth, adoption or foster care placement of a child.

A birth mother can take a total of at least 12 weeks paid time off.  Six weeks will be through the company’s existing, pregnancy-related short-term disability benefit, followed by six additional weeks under the new parental leave benefit.

“Paid parental leave will give Duke Energy employees important quality time to bond with their new children without the financial pressure of having to immediately return to work. That’s good for our employees and their children,” said Melissa Anderson, Duke Energy executive vice president and chief human resources officer.

“Coupled with our other work-family benefits, paid parental leave also will help us recruit and retain the next generation of highly skilled workers,” she added.

The company says it began seriously exploring the possibility of adding paid parental leave to its benefits package during the past two years in response to strong employee interest and growing competition among companies for the best workers, Anderson said.

Outside the electric utility sector, Duke Energy says it joins a relatively small group of U.S. companies, across all industries, that offer paid parental leave.

Only 21 percent of American companies provide paid maternity leave, and only 17 percent provide paid paternity leave, according to a 2015 benefits survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management.

Duke Energy says its new benefit is somewhat unique in another way: Some companies that do offer paid parental leave make a distinction between maternal and paternal benefits, or between the “primary caregiver” and “nonprimary caregiver” parent – sometimes giving either the father or the nonprimary caregiver less paid time off.

Duke Energy makes no such distinctions, instead giving the full benefit to either parent.

Duke Energy’s other family-focused employee benefits include a $5,000 reimbursement for costs associated with adopting a child; paid time off to care for a sick or injured child, parent or other family member; and 10 hours of paid time off each year to volunteer in an employee’s child’s school, or any other school.

Duke Energy employs about 29,000 workers, most of them in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky.