SACRAMENTO, Calif.–A policy that allows employees to bring their newborns to work—130 to date—has received some national media attention.
Schools Financial Credit Union here has been profiled for its program allowing employees after taking maternity and paternity leave to bring their infants to work every day until the babies turn six months old (or start to crawl). The two newest infants are eight-week-old twins Brielynn and Mayana, the daughters of Alyssa Palomino, who was featured in a TV broadcast report.
“It was one of the reasons I was interested in coming over here,” Palomino said in an interview. “I knew we were going to start a family at some point, and a huge benefit was being able to bring our babies to work for six months.”
According to Schools Financial, the babies-at-work program has been in effect since 2001, and Brielynn and Mayana are the 129th and 130th babies to participate. And while mothers are more likely to be the primary caretaker for newborns, nearly 20% of the participants in the program have been fathers working for the credit union, the credit union said.
“Even though you get to have time off under the law and all that, some people can’t afford to take off as much time as others,” Schools Financial Credit Union VP of Human Resources Lisa Mackay said. “So they end up being forced to come back to work sooner than they would want, and [have] to put their child in daycare. This gives them the option to come back to work, but still be able to stay with their baby.”
The news report can be found here.