Mom-Founded Infant Formula Company, Bobbie, Open-Sources New 12-Month Parental Leave Policy, TakeOurLeave | Business and finance

More than half of Bobbie’s team has had a baby in the past two years. #TakeOurLeave (Photo: Business Wire)

Bobbie’s co-founders Laura Modi (CEO and mom to Mary, Colin & Owen) and Sarah Hardy (COO and mom to Bea and Clinton) launched the company as a team of moms amid the pandemic – as more of two million women left the workforce – and decided to prioritize building a business that truly empowers employees, especially new parents, to thrive while raising a family. The new policy is the first of its kind for a company of this size, offering four months of paid leave and up to eight additional months (for a total of 12) for biological and non-biological parents to strengthen their bond with their baby. , adjust to their new normal, and mentally prepare to return to the workforce on their own terms. Today, one in four American mothers return to work ten days after giving birth ( The source ) and on average, new fathers only take one week of paid or unpaid parental leave ( The source ). Without the proper support systems in place, for women who do not have access to paid family leave, almost 30% leave the workforce within a year of giving birth and one in five do not return for more of a decade ( The source ).

“Without a national paid leave policy in the United States, there’s this myth that if you’re a small business, you can’t support a great parental leave program — and today we’re calling BS about it,” said Sarah Hardy, Bobbie co-founder and COO. “But we’re not interested in doing this alone – that’s why we’re releasing our policy as open source and urging others to TakeOurLeave by reimagining the one-dimensional view of parental leave and replacing it with a holistic approach that supports parents who work before, during and after baby’s arrival. Let’s work together to deliver the most elusive benefit: quality time with the babies we have.

The federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) grants parents the right to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year to bond with a newborn, newly adopted child, or foster child. ‘homepage. With her new policy, Bobbie calls on other companies to support working parents and make 12 months off, not 12 weeks, the norm rather than the exception.

“As Bobbie’s first investor, I have always believed in the product, but it is our shared ambition to change the way we push our culture towards a more empathetic and humanized view of working parents, which has been the most rewarding part of our collaboration,” said Kate McAndrew, partner at Bolt and Bobbie Mom.

After parental leave, all employees will have access to Bobbie’s two-week reintegration program, which allows them to work three days a week while they rehabilitate, while receiving full pay. Bobbie also understands that working parents carry the invisible weight of a mental load and an endless to-do list. In order to ease this load, the company offers a full-time balance coordinator, the first of its kind, to support all team members in tasks completely independent of work, such as finding a babysitter on the weekends. -end. Bobbie also celebrates all pregnancy announcements, sympathizes with pregnancy loss with miscarriage leave, and has agreed to be 100% remote with schedule flexibility for parents. Bobbie is proud of:

Birth announcements : With more than half of our team having a pandemic baby, we welcome, support and celebrate the pregnancy of a member of our team or the announcement of a baby on the way. In order to create a culture that supports working parents, it starts from the first day you commit to working as a pregnant or expecting parent. Bobbie wants to end the toxic culture of concealing pregnancies for fear of job repercussions or a backlash from executives, an outdated and disconnected response.

Agree to be fully remote: We made an early call to go 100% remotely. Zip code or other needs like caring for aging parents no longer limit our talent pool. We invite people to apply from anywhere. Bobbie’s employees are located in 17 states. Every week is different for a working parent and we encourage transparency in the schedule to make time for everything from pumping to picking up at daycare.

Offer a balance coordinator: The average number of tasks associated with homefront management is 500, which can impact well-being and productivity ( Source ). We wanted to be able to take something off the plates of our employees, so we created a designated internal role to lighten the invisible weight of mental load in the lives of our team members. So far, one in three employees have used this service with over 50 hours of collective time saved for our team per quarter, with each task taking around 2 hours. Bobbie’s balance coordinator booked bouncy houses, sent cocktail recipes, and helped find and hire nannies.

Support miscarriage discharge: Bobbie’s internal support group, the Bobbie Infant Loss Group, helped provide feedback to develop the miscarriage leave policy which provides three weeks of paid leave to support Bobbie employees who have suffered a miscarriage. Employees can also take time off as they approach their due date.

“Supporting working parents is deeply personal to me. I was the first mom to return from maternity leave at Airbnb and wrote their first parental leave policy, paving the way for the employees behind me. This transition to work after my first child became one of the most formative moments of my career – struggling to exclusively breastfeed and be there for my daughter while returning to a demanding job that I loved. That’s why we decided to reimagine what parent support looks like at Bobbie’s,” Hardy added.

Bobbie is an organic infant formula company that exists to create a parenting culture of trust, not comparison, where every parent is supported in making the feeding choice that is right for them and their baby. Bobbie launched in 2021 as the only direct-to-consumer, subscription-based infant formula company in the United States. Bobbie is founded by a mother and led and supported by a “medical mother board” made up of 11 advisors, including pediatricians, dieticians, lactation consultants, doulas, nurses, obstetricians/gynecologists, scientists and professionals who bring their expertise to the creation of a new generation formula. the society. Bobbie’s recipe is modeled after breast milk and designed to meet the latest European nutritional standards for essential ingredients like DHA and iron, while meeting all FDA nutritional standards for infant formula. Bobbie is focused on providing Target-sourced USDA organic infant formula with Organic Valley milk from pasture-raised cows. From the perspective that what you put in the formula is just as important as what you leave out, Bobbie doesn’t include common ingredients like corn syrup, palm oil, or maltodextrin. As a modern and determined company, Bobbie has donated over 400,000 bottles and supported the feeding journey of 65 mastectomy mothers. As a community first, Bobbie launched Milk-Drunk, a site offering simple answers, support and information, and The Feeding Confessionals, a safe interactive virtual space for parents. Bobbie was founded in 2018, is based in San Francisco, and is venture-backed. For more information on Bobbie, visit www.hibobbie.comand follow Bobbie on Instagram @bobbie.

KEYWORD: CALIFORNIA UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA

INDUSTRY KEYWORD: WOMEN HUMAN RESOURCES CHILDREN BABY/MATERNITY FITNESS & NUTRITION MEN PROFESSIONAL SERVICES FAMILY CONSUMER HEALTH

Copyright BusinessWire 2022.

PUBLISHED: 04/07/2022 10:59 AM/DISC: 04/07/2022 10:59 AM