Latest / The Diversity Career Podcast with Fexingo: Inclusion, Equity, and Underrepresented Professionals / How One Firm Made Its Parental Leave Truly Gender Neutral
Transcript
- Lucas: So earlier this month, Veridian Software — about fourteen hundred employees, based out of Austin — quietly released its first-ever diversity report. And buried on page 12 was a number that caught my eye. Luna: What was it? Lucas: Parental leave take-up rate among men: 87 percent. Compare that to the national average, which hovers somewhere around 30 to 40 percent for paternity leave in tech. And Veridian didn't just publish that number — they redesigned the policy to get there. Luna: What did they change exactly? Lucas: Back in 2023, Veridian scrapped the old 'maternity leave' and 'paternity leave' categories entirely. They replaced them with a single 'primary caregiver' leave: twenty weeks at full pay, available to any employee — regardless of gender — who is the primary caregiver for a new child through birth, adoption, or surrogacy. They also added four weeks of 'secondary caregiver' leave, also gender neutral. Luna: So they removed the labels and just let people self-identify as the primary caregiver. Lucas: Exactly. But the interesting part is how they handled the rollout. They didn't just announce it in an email. They ran a two-year pilot with a single business unit — about three hundred people — and tracked usage, manager feedback, and coverage. Luna: A pilot. That's smart — test before you scale. Lucas: Right. And during the pilot, they found two things. First, the take-up rate among men jumped from 22 percent under the old policy to 83 percent in the pilot. Second, managers initially worried about staffing gaps — especially in engineering teams where women already faced coverage concerns. But the data showed that when men took leave, the team adjusted just as well as when women did. Luna: That's a huge mindset shift. What about the pushback from leadership? Lucas: There was some. A few VPs argued that replacing 'maternity leave' with 'primary caregiver' might reduce the visibility of the policy for women — that new mothers might not realize they could still take the full twenty weeks. So Veridian's HR team did something clever: they created a simple decision tree that every new parent received, walking through scenarios based on who would be the primary caregiver. It removed ambiguity. Luna: So they didn't assume everyone would just figure it out. Lucas: No, they designed for confusion. And they also addressed the adoption and surrogacy gap. Under the old policy, adoptive parents got only eight weeks, and surrogate parents got nothing. The new policy equalized everything: twenty weeks for any route to parenthood. That alone increased the number of employees who felt the policy applied to them. Luna: Let's talk about retention. You mentioned a 30 percent drop in turnover among new parents. Lucas: Yes. Veridian tracked retention for employees who took leave within 18 months of the policy change. Among those who used the primary caregiver leave, turnover dropped from 18 percent to 12 percent. That's significant — especially in tech, where replacing an experienced engineer can cost one and a half to two times their annual salary. Luna: So the policy paid for itself pretty quickly. Lucas: According to their own analysis, the savings from reduced turnover offset the cost of the additional paid weeks within the first year. And they saw a secondary benefit: job applicants started mentioning the policy in interviews. Candidates — especially women and non-binary people — said it signaled that Veridian took work-life fit seriously. Luna: It became a recruiting tool. Lucas: Exactly. But here's where it gets nuanced. Even with a gender-neutral policy, social norms don't shift overnight. Veridian found that in the first six months, only about 15 percent of men took the full twenty weeks. Most took twelve to fourteen. When they surveyed those men, the main reason was concern about career impact — falling behind on projects, missing out on promotions. Luna: So the policy is gender neutral, but the culture still penalizes men who use it. Lucas: That's the next frontier. Veridian started pairing every employee who takes primary caregiver leave with a sponsor — a senior leader who checks in monthly, not to talk about work, but to make sure the employee isn't being sidelined. They also normalized the conversation by having senior leaders publicly share their own leave stories. The CEO, a man, took six weeks of secondary caregiver leave last year and talked about it in an all-hands. Luna: Modeling from the top. That's crucial. Lucas: It is. And it's probably why the take-up rate among men hit 87 percent in the most recent data. But I think the real lesson from Veridian isn't just about parental leave — it's about how you change a policy without just changing the words on a page. You need data, you need a pilot, you need training for managers, and you need ongoing cultural reinforcement. Luna: And you need to be willing to share the numbers publicly, like they did in that diversity report. Lucas: Right. Which is rare. Most companies I've seen still treat parental leave as a private matter — they don't track take-up by gender, they don't report it. Veridian's transparency is almost radical in comparison. Luna: Quick honest thing — we only get to dig into stories like this because of a handful of listeners who chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's literally what funds making this many episodes. Lucas: Yeah, and if this show has helped you think through a career move or better understand how inclusion actually works in practice, that's exactly the kind of support that keeps it ad-free and going. Luna: Exactly. So we can keep bringing you concrete cases like Veridian. Lucas: Alright, back to the data. One other thing Veridian did that I think is worth noting: they built a feedback loop. Every person who takes leave gets a survey three months after returning, asking about their transition, any barriers they faced, and whether they felt the policy was truly neutral. That data goes straight to the DEI team and the board. Luna: So they're iterating based on real experience. Lucas: Exactly. And that feedback led to a second change: they now offer a phased return — employees can come back at 80 percent time for the first four weeks at full pay. That came directly from survey comments saying the hardest part was the sudden switch from full-time parenting to full-time work. Luna: A phased return seems like a low-cost, high-impact addition. Lucas: It really is. And it's the kind of detail you only get if you actually listen. So to me, Veridian's story is a reminder that a truly inclusive policy isn't just about removing gendered labels. It's about redesigning the entire system — from piloting to manager training to ongoing measurement — so that everyone, regardless of gender or family structure, feels empowered to take the leave they need. Luna: And it's working. That 87 percent take-up rate for men is proof. Lucas: It is. And I think the question that leaves me with is: why aren't more companies following this playbook? The data is clear, the business case is strong, and the cultural benefits are real. Luna: Maybe because it requires admitting that the old policy was built on assumptions that don't hold anymore. Lucas: That's exactly it. And that's a tough conversation for a lot of organizations to have.