I used to be observing the Today Display this early morning just before perform, and they were talking about female employees and companies’ maternity depart policies. It was mentioned that the US and Australia are the only two industrialized countries that don’t have government regulated maternity depart policies. It’s up to the individual corporations in how they decide to handle parental depart and return. Based on some of the horror stories they discussed, I was curious how Microsoft stacks up. (I could tell by their examples we were better than the average bear.) According to Working Mother magazine, Microsoft is in the top 100 companies for working mothers, and to become honest, I didn’t see many other tech or software companies on the list. For those interested in learning more, we also have information on our career site, and, of course, there is our poster woman for working moms at Microsoft: KC Lemson. I am only a mom to two wonderful dogs,
Office 2007 Key, but I function with a lot of mothers, and I can say I’ve seen some innovative steps in the last few years like part-time employment (with benefits), job sharing, and telecommuting. We also have a lot of "virtual" support groups. It’s pretty cool. And we haven’t forgotten about dads. We also offer paid paternity depart. gretchen