These Are The Best Places To Work For Dads

Scary Mommy and Fatherly are proud to introduce Parents@Work, a joint initiative designed to help organizations recruit, retain and support employees with kids.

Based on a rigorous 148-point criteria, we evaluate companies on how their policies, benefits, and cultural practices improve outcomes for working parents. After careful consideration, we’re proud to introduce our initial cohort of Best Places To Work For Dads below. These honor rolls aren’t nearly exhaustive so we encourage you to submit your recommendations for other companies that deserve to apply.

To learn more about why we launched Parents@Work, you can read more here.

Alight Solutions

New fathers who work at the Lincolnshire, Illinois-based human resources and financial services company Alight Solutions are able to take advantage of a wide gamut of totally gender-neutral perks and policies.

The company provides its nearly 10,000 US employees with a great deal of flexibility at work, along with a number of benefits and programs to help new parents along the way.

Alight Solutions has a number of resources available to employees who are thinking about starting or expanding a family, such as family planning programs and assistance with covering adoption costs. And then, when the kid actually shows up, the company grants any new parent on its payroll eight weeks of paid time off for bonding and adjusting.

Perhaps most critically, Alight continues to support new dads even when they’re off working somewhere other than at the office through perks like backup childcare and eldercare, providing a helpline for 24/7 access to medical care, as well as access to virtual telehealth.

CarGurus

Like a VW Golf GTI, the online car marketplace and search engine CarGurus, packs a lot of employee benefit punch for its size. CarGurus provides working parents on its team with an impressively-competitive benefits package given the company’s comparatively smaller size (they have just 760 employees).

Unlike many companies out there, CarGurus doesn’t assume that mothers are going to be the ones taking care of a new child. So the company provides 19 weeks of paid leave — well above the average on this list and beyond — to new parents regardless of gender as long as they’re the one primarily taking care of the kid. Secondary caregivers get eight weeks of leave, — still competitive compared to what other companies offer regardless of caregiver status.

Though almost all of CarGurus’ workforce is salaried, its handful of hourly workers can access all of the same benefits as their full-time peers — none of the company’s team is left without insurance, time off of work, or parental leave if they need it.

new dads have resources at their disposal when they return to work, including telehealth access and a company-run affinity group for working parents to connect and share resources. CarGurus also gives employees extra benefits through Care.com, which helps them find tutors, babysitters, and other domestic help. Specifically, employees can use eight days of backup eldercare through the service and can also get backup childcare there as well.

Cerner

The healthcare IT and software company Cerner went out of its way to make sure that its benefits and perks for parents treat dads just as well as they do moms. With a workforce of nearly 20,000 in the US, Cerner acknowledged that not all of the new parents on its payroll are going to fit traditional — and outdated — expectations of what a family will look like.

To that end, Cerner grants the same amount of parental bonding leave and other new-parent resources to new moms and new fathers, regardless of whether they’re the primary or secondary caregiver. Additionally, Cerner reimburses employees for up to $5,000 per adopted child and gives the same amount of parental bonding time off for parents of adopted children as those of any other.

Cerner also provides access to two onsite daycare centers, called Cerner Kids, for kids up to age 6. Working parents at Cerner also enjoy backup childcare and eldercare, virtual education and tutoring services.

I am extremely grateful that Cerner has a paternity leave program to support the initial (and ongoing) bonding time that is so important for families. As we started this journey, the most important benefit for us was working with the maternity navigator… From insurance, administrative items, reimbursements, all the way to clinical support with classes and what to look for when picking our care team for our family, our navigator was with us every step of the process. Having this benefit and support took so much stress and pressure off of us and let us continue to focus on what matters most, being thankful for our opportunity to have a little boy and grow our family. – Randy M.

Citigroup

Citigroup, the fourth largest bank in the U.S. with customers in 159 countries, offers wealth management, investment and consumer banking, and credit card services to a mix of corporate and consumer customers. The company also has made major strides in how it cares for new fathers working in its U.S. corporate offices and remotely.

Over the last several years, Citigroup doubled the amount of paid time off that it provides for new fathers from four to eight weeks — the same amount of non-medical leave it offers to new moms.

Citi created a “Families Matter” employee resource group, which is a support group for its working parents in any and all sorts of families. Aside from connecting more parents who may have questions or challenges to others who can help, Families Matter also gives new dads access to online webinars and other resources to help them navigate parenthood, work, and the best ways to balance the two.

And if issues come up, Citigroup provides employees — and part-time workers who hit at least 20 hours a week — with backup childcare and eldercare as well as subsidies for external childcare.

Deloitte

Deloitte, one of the most prominent professional services firms on the planet, has offered its working parents highly competitive benefits and perks for years, and the company continues to make an earnest effort to continue improving.

The company’s gender-neutral parental leave policies give dads and other non-birth parents lots of time — up to 16 weeks — to spend at home after the arrival of a new child. If a family adopts or uses a surrogate, Deloitte offers to reimburse up to $50,000 of the various fees and payments throughout the process.

Meanwhile, the company also offers direct support for new parents through a suite of childcare subsidies, backup childcare and eldercare, and remote 24/7 access to healthcare providers for when issues pop up.

“With so much to worry about in 2020, how am I going to get my work done and when am I going to do it really isn’t something that I’ve had to stress about all that much. I have an amazing and supportive team who provides me the flexibility that I need to manage my workload. Allowing me to get my work done before, during, and after homeschooling two little kids and a wife who is an essential worker and often in the office has made a difficult situation so much easier.” – Tim O.

Deluxe

The Deluxe Corporation provides small businesses with an unusually wide range of financial and logistical services — from loans and checking to logo design and website development.

A growing number of companies offer competitive amounts of financial support for things like surrogacy, adoption, and fertility treatments, all of which can get expensive over time. Deluxe Corporation goes above and beyond, offering employees up to $20,000 for each of the three.

That’s more generous than many of the companies on this list. To add to it, Deluxe decided to adjust its plans to also extend the same benefits to male employees who are trying to start or expand their families with their male partners. Cerner now provides the same surrogacy payments to male employees to help them find and support a surrogate to give birth to their kids.

And as far as support later on goes, Deluxe also provides 24/7 access to nurses as well as full telehealth plans as part of its medical plan, and parents can also tap into childcare subsidies for when they know they’ll need someone to look after their kids and backup child care assistance for when it comes as a surprise.

Diageo

Diageo, the global beverage alcohol company responsible for Guinness, Johnnie Walker, and Captain Morgan, among others, encourages its consumers to enjoy its wares responsibly. The same could be said about the messaging to its own employees when it comes to new parents.

Diageo stands out among companies on this list for its particularly generous parental leave policy. With 26 weeks of leave available to any employee with a new kid, Diageo ties for first place in paid leave time out of all the companies on this list. The best part is that Diageo’s 1,900 employees can take advantage of that leave regardless of their gender, family structure, or whether they’re giving birth to a child or adopting.

That’s a crucial distinction: It’s important to not only compete with the best parental benefits programs out there, but also to make sure those perks remain accessible to everyone in a non-discriminatory way. And it seems Diageo is doing something right by making sure employees are able to and feel comfortable taking advantage of their benefits, since the company reports that 100 percent of the new dads who work there take part in that paid leave.

eBay

eBay, the internet’s destination for everything commerce since 1995, has historically been a progressive mover when it comes to employee benefits and workplace culture. The company offers equal benefits to dads as they do birth parents, meaning non-birth parents can take just as much paid time off as their partners.

eBay’s new dads can take 12 weeks of paid parental leave. Unlike many other companies on the list, eBay employees continue to make 100 percent of their base salary for the entirety of their time away from work, allowing them to bond with and help support new children without worrying about their budget. This benefit stands regardless of whether their partner gave birth, they adopted, they began to foster a child, or they pursued any other means of starting a family.

Aside from more formal parent coaching through Cleo, the company also helps foster a community of and for working parents to help new dads advocate for themselves, find out about resources both within the company and elsewhere, and find healthcare providers or childcare.

Facebook

Social media and tech giant Facebook offers its 52,500 U.S. employees extremely competitive perks, especially around family planning.

New moms and dads alike can take up to 16 weeks off to bond with their kids before gradually returning to work, regardless of whether they’ve had their own biological child or adopted. CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who took two months off after his own children were born, set an example from the top that we hope more leaders will model as paternity leave continues to gain popularity.

Now that Facebook can’t exactly offer onsite childcare to its workforce in a safe way, the company reimburses employees who pay for childcare or babysitting up to $3,000 per kid per year. The company also provides up to ten days of backup childcare or eldercare for times when unexpected issues pop up and parents find themselves in a bind.

Hilton

The hotel giant Hilton, which now includes 18 different brands such as Embassy Suites and DoubleTree, gives their working dads a wide variety of perks to help them start and care for their new families, regardless of whether they’re working on-location, at a corporate office, or from home.

The company offers an on-call concierge that serves as a lifeline for any new, expecting, or planning parents. After the kid comes along, the help line keeps any dads working from home informed about new perks, benefits, and other company programs that might not otherwise be communicated to them.

Even before the pandemic struck, Hilton provided employees with the chance to plan out, adjust, and swap hours as needed, even with short notice.

Recently, Hilton created a unique program through a partnership with Stanford University and Thrive Global that provides online educational resources to new parents. Perhaps more importantly, the program also teaches their managers how to better support employees as they figure out their new work-life balance with kids in the picture.

Finally, Hilton gives employees access to backup childcare, eldercare, and virtual medical coverage so new fathers can better take care of their families without needing to jump through extra logistical hoops and find caregivers on their own.

ICF Consulting

ICF Consulting, management consultants with offices around the world, specializes in future proofing organizations in areas like healthcare and public health, transportation infrastructure, and the environment.

Nearly all of the dads on ICF Consulting’s team take advantage of the perks offered to them, which include four weeks of paid parental leave, suggesting that the company’s workplace culture makes good on its promise to support all working parents regardless of gender. The paternity leave lasts for the exact same amount of time as a birth parent’s. After that time runs out, fathers — alongside all other non-birth parents — can take another eight weeks of unpaid leave.

Meanwhile, the company offers services like telehealth and other on-call healthcare providers. This helps working dads stay on top of any issues or medical scares as they arise without having to put themselves or their families at risk with unnecessary travel. ICF also offers ReThink which, despite being geared primarily toward helping kids with special needs, also provides general parenting resources as well.

“As a father, the opportunity to take parental leave to focus on the birth of our first-born daughter (in a pandemic!) was priceless. I was able to do so with the support of the company, my manager and team, and my stakeholders. Upon returning, I was more engaged and connected to my work and the people I work with than ever before!” – Josh W.

Mastercard

Mastercard, the financial services corporation, recently took stock of the benefits, programs, and other perks it offers employees and made a concerted effort to improve across the board. The company drastically improved its benefits and special perks on multiple occasions throughout 2020, especially in regards to programs for all the working parents who were stuck at home.

Mastercard doubled the parental leave it offered new dads from eight to 16 weeks in January 2020, a move that the company said was an important part of its mission to constantly evolve the ways it supports its staff. It seems to be paying off: Compared to other companies in the financial services industry, an above average amount of dads take full advantage of their parental leave at Mastercard.

The company also provides childcare near its physical offices through Bright Horizons. But because so many Mastercard employees work from home nowadays, the company provides medical and mental healthcare services remotely along with backup care services and concierges to get employees connected with whatever other resources they might need.

Maven Clinic

The same forward-thinking vision that Maven Clinic brought to healthcare is also apparent in how the startup supports the dads on staff. The New York-based, women-focused telemedicine company offers 12 weeks of parental leave to all parents along with a readjustment period when it’s time to go back to work.

And once they are back on the job, new dads don’t feel alone. Maven offers assistance with many of the anxieties new parents face, from finding childcare to financial planning for their children’s future. But perhaps our favorite offering is the male caregiver affinity group that gives the dads on staff a chance to give and get valuable advice to and from their colleagues, part of a larger culture that acknowledges the realities of parenting.

“I never feel judged for blocking my calendar to pick my daughter up at school or attend her dance recital because I see so many of my peers and our leaders doing the same,” says one Maven employee.

And fittingly for a company whose mission is to make real medical advice accessible and affordable, it also provides access to virtual medical and mental health services to help ensure dads are getting the care they need regardless of any reticence they might have to visit a doctor’s office in-person.

Nav Technologies, Inc

The financial services app Nav Technologies, Inc helps pair small business owners with things like loans, credit cards, and can pull credit reports. With just 120 employees in the United States, Nav Technologies is considerably smaller than most of the companies on this list but still offers comparable benefits capable of helping push the industry forward.

For instance, the company says that it actively decided to do away with outdated practices like automatically granting new dads fewer benefits or less parental leave than new mothers. Nav Technologies has a large LGBTQ+ community within its workforce, so it treats working parents as caregivers in general rather than making any assumptions about gender and how it might factor into family roles.

Nav Technologies takes its inclusive approach to parental benefits a step further, offering all the same perks to adoptive parents that it would birth parents or any other employee who’s adding a new child to their family. As for the benefits themselves, Nav Technologies makes sure it supports working parents no matter where they are in the world through telehealth coverage, access to a 24/7 medical helpline, and by forming an employee resource group so parents looking for support can connect and share their experiences and resources.

Nuance Communications

Nuance Communications, a tech company that’s known for its AI speech recognition and chatbot technology, provides a surprising level of support and competitive accommodations to the parents on its payroll.

The company provides 12 weeks of paid leave for new parents to bond with their kids. And as a bonus, the company lets parents spread and divide that time up over the course of a year. That’s a nice gesture because some parents might be ready to come back sooner than others, and this way they don’t have to sacrifice their time off if they decide to do so.

When parents do return, they’re gradually brought back into the fold through a ramp-up period that helps them readjust to the time and work expectations of their job over time.

Nuance Communications also provides access to back-up childcare and eldercare subsidies through Care.com, making sure that new parents have access to the support they need. Beyond that, employees have access to a childcare concierge and an employee resource group where they can find contacts, tips, and other resources that might come in handy.

NVIDIA

Silicon Valley chipmaker NVIDIA, best known for its industry-leading graphics processing units that help power video game interfaces, movie graphics, and more, offers a serious level up in benefits for new dads.

New fathers at NVIDIA can step away for 12 weeks of parental leave time — during which they still get 100 percent of their salaries. When that runs out, they can take another eight full weeks of flex time to help them re-acclimate themselves to life at work instead of jumping right back in cold. That’s the exact same amount of parental leave that new moms get, though birth parents can also take another 10 weeks of pregnancy leave.

Once they’re back at work, NVIDIA gives new fathers access to parenting podcasts, articles, and other educational programs through a third-party vendor. Employees can join a group where parents and other caregivers share advice and resources. NVIDIA created Employee Resource Groups for all of the parents and caregivers on its team, and it plans to add more parenting seminars and workshops to specifically help dads juggle work with the new challenges and obligations of fatherhood soon.

Okta

Okta, the fast-growing identity management and cloud software company, boasts that nearly half of its executive team is made up of fathers with kids under the age of 18. The fact that Okta offers generous policies for the new dads who work there, then, shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Every new parent at the company can take up to 18 weeks of paid parental leave, well above the industry average, regardless of their gender and whether or not they’re the birth parent. That means that new dads get the time that they deserve to bond with their babies and help their families without needing to rush right back to work.

For dads who already have kids, Okta offers camps and other remote programs to keep everyone busy and entertained while they’re cooped up at home, helping make everything a little bit easier to manage and balance. Okta also provides mental wellness resources through Modern Health and Headspace.

PIMCO

PIMCO, the investment management firm with nearly $2 trillion in assets under management, stands out for the ways it provides the new dads on its staff with personalized support and robust benefits meant to make working during parenthood as painless as possible.

For example, PIMCO created a New Parent Support Team that pairs up new dads with experienced parents working at PIMCO for one-on-one mentoring and coaching. The program serves as a fairly straightforward way to foster a company culture that hinges on mutual support, making it clear to working parents that they have tools at their disposal even beyond more formal benefits like telehealth or childcare. Speaking of, PIMCO covers ten days of backup childcare or eldercare each year, helping parents take care of the unexpected problems that are, well, expected.

PIMCO also hosts a wide variety of parenting events and programs over the course of a year. Many of these are educational workshops, but PIMCO Families, an employee resource group, also created a speaker series on a variety of topics ranging from managing life as a working parent to cybersecurity. The company also hosted roundtable discussions that gave parents a space to share tips or resources with their peers in a less formal medium than its mentorship program.

Progyny

It is fitting that Progyny, a benefits provider that makes high-quality fertility treatments financially accessible to employees of many companies on this list, “walks the walk,” earning its place on this list.

Now more than ever, companies provide their employees with important lifelines like prenatal and postnatal coaching to help them through the challenges leading up to and immediately after bringing a new child into the family. Progyny takes things a step further. Instead of focusing on birth parents, Progyny provides that same coaching — as well as access to onsite or telehealth therapy — to every new parent on its staff and their partners.

Beyond that Progyny takes important steps to specifically support fathers through parenting-focused employee groups and benefits to help make parenting a little bit less stressful, like providing childcare subsidies for the times new dads know they’ll need some help looking after their kids as well as backup childcare for the days they couldn’t plan for.

Reddit

Reddit, founded by outspoken parental leave advocate Alexis Ohanion (https://www.fatherly.com/love-money/reddit-alexis-ohanian-interview-paternity-leave-fatherhood/), shines for providing some of the more generous and accommodating childcare benefits to the parents on its 830-person staff.

With access to Kinside provided by the company, new dads working at Reddit can access a variety of childcare benefits. On top of that, Reddit created a Day Care Flexible Spending Account (FSA) that gives any employee with dependents access to a $5,000 annual stipend that can go toward childcare, educational programs or tutors, home and school supplies, and the like.

Reddit doesn’t discriminate when it doles out parental leave for employees welcoming a new child into their families — moms and dads alike can take 16 weeks of paid time off, regardless of whether they or their partner are giving birth or adopting. Throughout the whole process, employees can get prenatal and postnatal coaching through Cleo, and they can also expense any costs associated with fertility, surrogacy, or adoption through Reddit as needed.

Reddit also goes above and beyond with its parental leave program by offering 8.5 weeks off of work to any employee who — whether it’s them or their partner — loses a pregnancy so that they can step back and take the time they need without having to explain the circumstances to their manager.

Ryan

The corporate tax services company Ryan counts some extremely prominent companies among its list of clients — and that prominence allows it to compete with some of the most generous employers out there when it comes to job perks and benefits.

Ryan offers one of the more substantial sick leave policies on the list, helping set a new standard for not only providing the resources but also establishing a culture in which employees can take the time away from their desks that they need to recuperate. About 80 percent of Ryan’s 1,900 US employees get unlimited paid time off. The rest of the team can take between 22 and 27 days off per year, well above the amount that’s typically offered.

Ryan’s company-wide emphasis on employee flexibility sets it apart from many of its competitors. The company’s myRyan program allows team members to set up and adjust their work schedules as needed. That’s particularly helpful from working parents who may find their day-to-day routines fluctuating wildly over time, especially when kids happen to get sick.

Salesforce

Salesforce, the software-as-a-service giant, has almost doubled its workforce since 2017. How did it entice some 50,000 employees in short order? Massive compensation opportunities are surely part of the draw, since the average employee makes $116,000 per year, but Salesforce also offers some of the best perks for new parents for any company of its size.

The keystone to Salesforce’s generous leave policy is in the way it defines “primary caregivers.” The company is resolute in treating this loaded term with gender neutrality, meaning that the company doesn’t automatically assume the primary caregiver is mom. This has a trickle down effect on parenting policy, helping families to adopt, raise foster children, or afford expensive fertility or surrogacy procedures, no matter who the primary breadwinner is.

To add to this, the leave for both primary caregivers and secondary caregivers is generous. Whoever that primary caregiver happens to be gets 26 weeks — more than any other company on the list offers — while secondary caregivers get 12 — and either get paid 80 percent of their normal earnings throughout which is particularly generous given just how long parents can step away from work.

Salesforce also offers childcare — onsite in some locations prior to the pandemic and paid reimbursements in others — to help parents take care of their kids when it is time to come back to work. Even though daycare got shut down, the company still has nurses and other forms of on-call healthcare and parenting resources as needed through its insurance.

Synopsys

The silicon chip and software development company Synopsys has been around Silicon Valley for decades. When it comes to the considerations that make a company a welcoming place for new dads, Synopsys made sure to create a comprehensive and competitive benefits package to address their needs beyond those of new parents in general.

For starters, Synopsys has completely gender-neutral parental leave policies and offers the same amount of time off and resources to parents who adopt as it would to any others. Dads who take parental leave get their full salary for the first four weeks and 75 percent of their salaries for the next eight weeks of leave — though that money comes in pre-tax everywhere but in California, making the drop less of a strain on their budgets.

That chunk of paid time off is exactly the same for dads and other non-birthing parents as it is for birth parents, acknowledging that it benefits everyone for dads to have the same amount of bonding time with their new kids as anyone else. (To wit, a study of limited paternity leave in California, researchers found that paternity leave had a “positive effect” or “no noticeable effect” on productivity, profitability/performance, turnover, and employee morale.)

TIAA

The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA) first started as a financial service for teachers, and has since expanded to provide support to academics, researchers, and various non-profits. When it comes to policies for new parents, let’s just say TIAA is a fast learner.

TIAA took extra steps to not only acknowledge that fathers play an active role in parenting and deserve equal benefits, but also created an employee support group to give new dads a place to share their experiences, resources, and find help as they need it. The company also worked to educate its staff about various forms of inclusive parenting —a particularly important aspect of creating a company culture where employees not only can access benefits but feel comfortable actually doing so.

The benefits themselves stand out even within the context of this list. TIAA repeatedly improved its benefits package throughout 2020, showing that it was willing and able to hear what its employees needed and respond accordingly. For instance, TIAA provided backup childcare reimbursement up to $60 per day for a total of 20 days at the start of 2020. Over the course of the last year, those numbers increased to $200 of coverage for 60 days. And then TIAA decided to extend those improvements through 2021 to illustrate that properly supporting working parents shouldn’t just be a temporary thing.

With extensive access to virtual tutors and other academic support, childcare through Sittercity, and multiple forms of online healthcare, TIAA showed that it’s determined to adapt and make sure it continues to support its working parents in ways that actually make a difference in the world as it is today.

Very

With just 67 employees and no hourly workers, the internet of things product and software developer Very is among the smallest companies on this list — and yet it still goes above and beyond by offering perks and benefits comparable with those at much larger corporations.

Very believes that new parents, regardless of their gender and family structure should all be able to play an equal role in raising and supporting their families — especially when employees have or adopt a new kid. As such, new moms and dads can all take the same amount of time — six weeks at full salary and another six unpaid — off from work.

The company clearly did something right with its parental leave policy, too. Very says that 100 percent of eligible fathers at the company felt comfortable taking leave, indicative of a healthy company culture in which employees actually feel comfortable taking advantage of their benefits.

Very is also particularly flexible when it comes to all of the last-minute surprises or emergencies that seem all-but-inevitable when taking care of a new kid. The company makes it very clear to parents that they should feel comfortable taking time off at the last minute for things like doctor’s appointments, sick kids, bereavement, and any other unexpected issues — no manager approval necessary whatsoever.

ZX Ventures

ZX Ventures, a division within the beverage giant Anheuser-Busch Inbev, invests in, develops, and helps launch new drink brands, products, and technologies. Raise a glass, because ZX Ventures parent-focused benefits deserve a toast.

The company parental perks are, by and large, totally gender neutral with benefits like parental leave and parenting-related financial support going to whomever needs them rather than automatically assuming that new mothers will be primary caretaker at home.

ZX Ventures acknowledges that family planning and any hurdles that would-be parents experience along the way affect everyone, not just the birth parent. So the company provides WIN for Him, an advocacy program for men designed to help them through the emotional and psychological challenges of infertility, offered through ZX’s partnership with WINFertility.

ZX Venture employees can also take advantage of a wide variety of perks meant to help with all the other stresses of parenthood. That includes healthcare partnerships with telehealth networks Amwell and MDLive, as well as backup childcare — and eldercare — through Bright Horizons.

That’s particularly important, not only because it makes sure parents have support during any unexpected hiccups along the way, but also because ZX partnered with the companies that specifically focus on — and excel at handling — these problems instead of trying to do everything itself, making sure employees have access to the best standards of care.