The Most Adoption-Friendly Workplaces

Every year, the Dave Thomas Foundation evaluates the adoption benefits offered by companies throughout the US. Dave Thomas, for those who might not know, was the founder of the Wendy’s fast food franchise. He was adopted from foster care, and was passionate about adoption. His foundation ranks the top 100 adoption-friendly workplaces. Companies are rated primarily on the reimbursement amount they offer to adoptive parents. The secondary criteria is the amount of paid leave for adoption.

Naturally, Wendy’s International, Inc. is the #1 adoption-friendly workplace. Wendy’s offers up to $24,300 in reimbursement and 6 weeks of paid leave.

The rankings are surprising. Software giant Microsoft is ranked 98th, with a $5,000 reimbursement and 4 weeks of paid leave. Wendy’s offers almost 5 times that amount of money. Maybe the free sodas preclude offering more adoption benefits. (Full disclosure: I worked for Microsoft for 2 years.) Google (74th) offers $7,000 and 7 weeks of paid leave. I’m sure there’s some symbolism there.

Citizen’s Financial Group (2nd) offers up to $22,150 in reimbursement. By contrast, LSI Corporation offers $15,000, and the money drops off after that. It seems that most of these companies offer between $5,000 and $10,000. The leave varies dramatically. Sullivan & Crowell, headquartered in New York, offer the most leave – 18 weeks. Nestle USA (62nd), Sears (48th), First Sun Management (47th), and Eli Lilly (33rd) offer only 1 week of leave. Even Barilla and Time, Inc, numbers 9 and 10 respectively, only offer 1 week of paid leave.

I wanted to compare this with Europe. I’m sure most of us have heard about their minimum 1 year, 39 weeks paid maternity leave. However, my sources tell me that adoptive parents are only guaranteed unpaid leave.

I find the entire list fascinating. Really. Who would have thought that the state of Florida would rank number one in the Government category? And I’ve never even heard of 3 of the top 5 in Technology, Information, and Research.

It’s possible that some of you readers work for these companies. If so, congratulations! For those of you who don’t, you might be able to convince your HR department to offer adoption benefits. The Dave Thomas Foundation offers a toolkit, and Adoptive Families magazine offers advice for lobbying for adoption benefits. Adoptive Families also has its own list of companies that have been recommended by readers.

Photo Credit.

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