How LinkedIn’s fertility benefits became a ‘USP for talent attraction’

This arti­cle is part of our Going Against the Grain series, which tells the sto­ries of com­pa­nies bold enough to break busi­ness norms and try out new ideas. To explore the rest of the series, head here.

The num­ber of employ­ers offer­ing their staff fam­i­ly-build­ing ben­e­fits, includ­ing assis­tance with fer­til­i­ty, adop­tion or fos­ter­ing, is on the rise.

Fer­til­i­ty advice provider Fer­til­i­ty­IQ esti­mates that 800 large organ­i­sa­tions around the world offer such ben­e­fits – a 59% increase on 2019’s total.

These can be cost­ly for employ­ers to imple­ment, com­pared with stan­dard offer­ings such as gym mem­ber­ships. The aver­age fam­i­ly-build­ing sup­port pack­age offered by US firms last year was worth $36,000 (£30,000), with some com­pa­nies offer­ing up to $80,000.

But it has been a worth­while invest­ment for LinkedIn, which intro­duced its fer­til­i­ty pack­age for UK staff in 2019. The com­pa­ny reports that this has improved employ­ee well­be­ing, cul­tur­al cohe­sion and its pow­er to attract and retain tal­ent.

LinkedIn start­ed offer­ing the ben­e­fits in light of a sur­vey of 5,000 work­ers and HR pro­fes­sion­als in the UK. One of the key find­ings was that work­place poli­cies were fail­ing to meet the needs of employ­ees, par­tic­u­lar­ly those seek­ing to start a fam­i­ly. 

Kather­ine Gilbert is LinkedIn’s senior direc­tor of com­pen­sa­tion and ben­e­fits in EMEA and Latin Amer­i­ca. She explains that the com­pa­ny “want­ed to build an envi­ron­ment of sup­port for every­one in our work­force and imple­ment the appro­pri­ate poli­cies to help employ­ees on their fer­til­i­ty jour­neys”.

Gilbert adds: “When new employ­ees join LinkedIn and learn about the fer­til­i­ty ben­e­fit dur­ing induc­tion, it’s a ‘wow’ moment for them. The feed­back we’ve received has been, and con­tin­ues to be, incred­i­ble.”

What support do employees receive?

Through LinkedIn’s fer­til­i­ty and adop­tion assis­tance pro­gramme, employ­ees in the UK can claim back mon­ey they spend dur­ing the adop­tion process or put towards fer­til­i­ty treat­ments, with a max­i­mum claim of £7,000 per cycle and a life­time lim­it of £21,000.

The com­pa­ny also offers them access to a 24/7 con­fi­den­tial coun­selling ser­vice, webi­na­rs and a data­base of fam­i­ly ser­vices.

Employ­ers plan­ning to intro­duce sim­i­lar ben­e­fits need to con­sid­er the com­pre­hen­sive­ness of the help they intend to offer would-be par­ents, accord­ing to Gilbert.

“Employ­ees need to be sup­port­ed by their man­agers through­out this process, so we give our man­agers guid­ance on how to be flex­i­ble on work­ing hours to allow for time spent on appoint­ments, for exam­ple,” she says.

Gilbert believes that the pol­i­cy has had a notice­able pos­i­tive impact on her organisation’s cul­ture. “We under­stand that fam­i­ly comes first and we want to help employ­ees on their jour­ney. The emo­tion­al well­be­ing of our team is a top pri­or­i­ty for us,” she says. “This ben­e­fit is an exam­ple of the inclu­sive and sup­port­ive cul­ture at LinkedIn, which is our USP for tal­ent attrac­tion and reten­tion.”

Normalising discussions about fertility in the workplace

Intro­duc­ing fer­til­i­ty and adop­tion assis­tance has also helped to encour­age more open dis­cus­sions about what can often be a sen­si­tive and high­ly emo­tive sub­ject, espe­cial­ly for those who des­per­ate­ly want to start a fam­i­ly and have been strug­gling to do so for some time.

“By offer­ing such a ben­e­fit, we are acknowl­edg­ing the real­i­ty for many is that the path to start­ing a fam­i­ly is not always straight­for­ward,” Gilbert says. “This pro­vides a space for peo­ple to open up if they want to. We know we can’t take away every part of the stress of fer­til­i­ty treat­ment, but we can show that we’re there to sup­port col­leagues.”

There are few bar­ri­ers for staff who want to use the assis­tance pro­gramme. The only require­ment is that the appli­cant must be an “active employ­ee” when they and their part­ner incur the costs eli­gi­ble for reim­burse­ment.

Obvi­ous­ly, not every­one at the com­pa­ny will use the ben­e­fit, but all staff “can see how impact­ful it would be. Many employ­ees will have friends or rel­a­tives who’ve expe­ri­enced chal­lenges in start­ing a fam­i­ly,” Gilbert notes.

Advice for companies introducing a fertility benefit

She reports that LinkedIn didn’t run into any seri­ous prob­lems when imple­ment­ing the assis­tance scheme, although the scale of the roll-out across the many ter­ri­to­ries in which the firm oper­ates war­rant­ed more plan­ning than small­er busi­ness­es might need to do.

Her advice to com­pa­nies think­ing about intro­duc­ing sim­i­lar schemes would be to first ensure that the work­place cul­ture is sup­port­ive enough for peo­ple to feel they can talk to their man­agers and HR teams about any fer­til­i­ty strug­gles they may be hav­ing. Then it’s a case of ensur­ing that every­one knows how to access the rel­e­vant ser­vices.

Gilbert says: “The deci­sion whether or not to have chil­dren is an intense­ly per­son­al one, but employ­ees need to know that they will not be dis­ad­van­taged in their careers by talk­ing open­ly about their hopes for a fam­i­ly. That will ease the wor­ry that many peo­ple – espe­cial­ly women – in this posi­tion will expe­ri­ence.” 

Employ­ers must also under­stand that under­go­ing fer­til­i­ty treat­ment or the adop­tion process can be a com­plex and stress­ful expe­ri­ence. Gilbert advis­es that man­agers should be made aware that in-vit­ro fer­til­i­sa­tion (IVF) cycles may require irreg­u­lar work­ing pat­terns, so there may be occa­sions where they need to help affect­ed employ­ees han­dle their work­loads through such peri­ods.

At such times, it’s impor­tant to ensure that the indi­vid­u­als con­cerned feel val­ued, sup­port­ed and secure, what­ev­er the result. 

“If the treat­ment is unsuc­cess­ful, the employ­ee may need time to recov­er and their sit­u­a­tion needs to be han­dled sen­si­tive­ly, as a fail­ure will nat­u­ral­ly be a huge dis­ap­point­ment,” she stress­es.

Although there has been an increase in the num­ber of com­pa­nies offer­ing employ­ees finan­cial sup­port for sur­ro­ga­cy, adop­tion and IVF treat­ment, Gilbert believes that “more needs to be done to pro­tect those under­go­ing fer­til­i­ty-relat­ed chal­lenges”.

Apple, Cen­tri­ca, Face­book, Hoot­suite, NatWest and Sales­force are among some of the oth­er com­pa­nies to offer fer­til­i­ty ben­e­fits. These range from egg-freez­ing to sup­port for same-sex cou­ples plan­ning to start fam­i­lies.

As more busi­ness­es fol­low suit and con­ver­sa­tions about the sub­ject become nor­malised in the work­place, fer­til­i­ty sup­port may in time become as com­mon as den­tal insur­ance or gym mem­ber­ship on the list of cor­po­rate perks.