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A site visitor wrote in that her husband's employer offers adoption benefits to salaried employees but not to those paid on an hourly basis. While it's common for companies to have different classifications of employees which may have different benefits, I find it hard to understand why adoption benefits wouldn't be included for all full-time employees, no matter their salaried or hourly status.
Considering the relatively low number of people who adopt as compared with the number of people who give birth, it would seem that companies could reasonably afford to offer this benefit across the board, to all employees who are offered maternity benefits.
Your thoughts?
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just in reply,
I am a registered nurse in a large group of hospitals and was refused any paid benefits following the adoption of my son. I also was not offered any assistance financially towards expenses. For a not for profit hospital system that builds a reputation based on customer service, and community support it offered me nothing in support. As a proffesional I was sadly disappointed. I wrote a letter to the ceo of the hospital who said that they could not pay me "eib" ( extended illness bank) as i was not sick. Had it not been a federal law that they could not refuse me a family LOA they would have refused me that too. However a friend of mine who adopted had all expenses paid by her husbands company. Go EXXON!!!!
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Thanks for posting. There's a wide discrepancy among employers about adoption benefits! During his lifetime, Dave Thomas pushed hard for laws about this, and did a lot of work with companies to make them aware of the advantages of offering these benefits. His adoption foundation sponsors materials that you can get (free) for your employer's human resources department.All bestNancy
Last update on April 27, 2:58 pm by Miriam Gwilliam.
My husband's former employer, a large local company, did offer reimbursement up to a certain dollar amount (I forget what it was) to assist with the costs. And they gave every employee a car seat when their first child was born/adopted. It is a great gesture on their part and we were surprised to see it.
My employer will allow me the FMLA 12 weeks (with no pay) and I can use my vacation and emergency leave (which is one day) but no sick leave unless the child is ill. But at the same time, there is no printed policy for adoption, just births by employees. And those employees that give birth can use their disability insurance when their sick leave is gone. Adoptions seem to be up in the air, at best. I don't know that they realize that bonding is crucial and emotions are high at that time and you're stressed out and you plainly NEED that time at home.
I think your comment about their not realizing probably hits closest to what's going on. I hope that new ways to reach human resources directors and their staffs will be developed, and that employees who adopt will bombard them with information like the packets prepared by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.
Thanks for your post!
All best
Nancy
My employer was fantastic, and on only 1 day's notice! We got a call 3 days before our baby was born, and that was on a Saturday. On Monday he was born while I was at work (I had barely told my boss about it that morning) and my hubby & I left work & fled up to meet our new baby. When I called in a few days later my bosses gave me 3 weeks paid leave + however much time I needed after that as unpaid. When I returned to work they surprised me with a wonderful baby shower. There is no adoption policy, per se, but they improvised awesomely!! :p God is good!
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