“One in five women worry that it will hurt their career if they request or take advantage of flexible work benefits,” said Jess Huang, partner and co-author of McKinsey & Company’s Women in the Workplace 2021 report. “That’s so sad, right? Because companies are working so hard to put these in place. It goes to tell you that just having the program and policy is not enough if you don’t create an environment where people feel they can take it.”

In order to make benefits work for the women, employers must consider not just what’s available, but how it’s made available.

Huang participated in “Making Benefits Work for Women in Your Workplace,” a webinar hosted by From Day One, which I moderated. The conversation, which included Huang and four benefits leaders, focused on how employers can design benefits that support women at all of their intersections, both now and later, and how they can ensure women feel empowered to use them.

How Women Can Feel Empowered to Use Company Benefits

The group agreed that creating a company culture where women feel comfortable taking advantage of their benefits is the first order of business. One problem of culture, the panelists said, is that many employers think of “women’s benefits” as a discrete category and make them available only to women, which means those women will feel singled-out, even penalized, for using them.

“I think the biggest misconception is that you need to focus on benefits specific to women,” said Huang. “These are not women-specific benefits; all employees benefit.”

Chad Deshler, chief revenue officer at Flo, an app for women’s reproductive health, said his company has made a point to offer both maternity and paternity leave for this reason, and Lora Christopher, executive director of employee benefits at utility company Consumers Energy, said that men in her workforce who have taken parental leave come back with a greater appreciation for the time away.

The group agreed that all employees, especially leaders, should be encouraged to take advantage of what have been considered “women’s benefits,” like child-care stipends and parental leave, to normalize use across the organization. “If you see your male coworker also taking advantage of those benefits, it feels more okay, it feels like you're more on a level playing field,” Huang said.

Considering Short-term and Long-term Needs

John Eshleman, the director of benefits for Memorial Hermann Health System in Texas, said the way he thinks about short-term needs changed during the pandemic. When his staff needed time away for sick leave or to take care of children, his team responded quickly by standing up a reimbursement system for emergency childcare. Now that benefit has been rolled into a regular plan that considers long-term family care needs.

“As the pandemic has continued on and evolved into a different, non-emergency situation,” said Eshleman, “we’ve transitioned away from that emergency cash, but we’ve also enhanced our emergency backup childcare and we’ve increased the number of days that we’ve offered to our employee base.”

Ultimately, he said, short-term and long-term needs vary across the board–what each person needs will be different at different times. Emergency child care today, a financial plan for paying for long-term child care later. Right now, having time away is one of the most important things, he said. “Otherwise, they’re going to become part of this great resignation and stay part of it.”

Christopher of Consumers Energy considered both short- and long-term goals when making the company’s six-month parental leave flexible. “Not everybody wants to be off for a full six months, so we extended it for a full year so individuals can take it intermittently for that entire year, which actually has helped a ton with transitioning back into the workplace.”

Knowing Your Demographics

Understanding the demographics of your workforce is also important when it comes to supporting women at all intersections, like gender and race, gender and ability, or gender and parental status.

Jennifer Costea, SVP of employee benefits at Marsh & McLennan Agency, recommended knowing stats like what share of your employees are new parents, who might need prenatal education and help with FMLA, what share are parents sending their kids to college, and who might need access to an employee-assistance program (EAP). “I think the first thing to really get ingrained is having the finger on the pulse of your demographics,” she said. “Something as simple as surveying is really important.”

“A lot of companies actually look at women's representation or representation of their employees of color,” said Huang, “but fewer companies actually track for Black women, LGBTQ women, Asian women, and at every single intersection, how does their representation look at each and every level?”

The Future of Women’s Benefits 

I asked the group: Have employers gotten better at responding to women’s needs?

“I think wise employers are getting better at responding to women’s needs,” said Christopher. “As we continue to work through the pandemic, employers really have to be more creative to focus on the needs of women to attract and retain those individuals, as well.” She admitted that it’s still difficult to respond to changing needs in real time.

Costea believes that companies with women in the C-suite are moving toward better benefits more quickly. “I’m seeing some progression across the board,” she said.

Benefits used to mean medical, dental, and vision, said Eshleman. Now it means all of that, plus well-being and mental health support. Deshler noted that employers have learned that benefits programs built with women in mind can attract and retain talent. “I would applaud what a lot of people are doing on this front,” he said.

Huang said she’s optimistic, and that companies are better at responding to women’s needs since the pandemic. “I do want to give credit to the companies that stood up over the last couple of years and said, ‘Hey, we need to make some changes in childcare benefits,’ or ‘We need to make some changes in the way we work day-to-day so women and moms have a little bit more flexibility,’” Huang said. “We should have hope for where the trend is going.”

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance reporter based in Richmond, VA, who writes about workplace culture and policies, hiring, DEI, and issues faced by women. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Fast Company, and Food Technology, among others, and has been syndicated by MSN and The Motley Fool.