How about some fairness for the fellow workers who have to take up the slack? Do supervisory personnel, who will likely fill the vacancies, get additional pay? Not generally.
It says that all employes have an unlimited leave option, so I assume that will hope to keep down resentment. Millennials care very much about work/life balance and not as much about other employment perks that have been more traditional valued. It is likely that Netflix has cut away some forms of compensation that was unused in order to fund this. I’d like to know if it is only for salaried employees or if hourly employees also get this. If it’s salaried only, how many people adopt or have a baby each year? Do they need to do some work at home, do they have to be a full-time employee for a certain length of time before taking maternity/paternity leave, etc. etc.
The headline screams that they are conducting some socialist type experiment will cause the sea levels to rise for the rest of us, but it is probably more limited in real life. How many employees fit the criteria each year? How much free advertising and word of mouth, as well as employee loyalty do they get from this move? They get kudos from a lot of people who go, “Wow! Paid maternity leave for a year!” without actually doing much but juggling numbers. I expect to see more of this in the next few years, and less of more traditional compensation packages.