Amazon pauses vesting when you’re on medical or parental leave | Hacker News Reader

Amazon pauses vesting when you’re on medical or parental leave

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59 pointsAustin_Conlon19 comments

Amazon recruiters seem to reach out more than anyone else, and I don't think i'll ever feel desperate enough to deal with that toxic culture of a company.

The products are indeed exciting in many cases, but 10 days of PTO for your first year? I got more PTO from a no-name tiny non-tech company as my first job in Austin, TX.

Last I was there, you couldn't take parental leave your first year. Sad.

I worked for an organization in a salaried position that had a waiting period for getting health benefits at all. And it was itself a healthcare organization.

I also remember that you couldn't get FMLA leave before a certain amount of time passed. Which is why I left, because stuff happened shortly after I was hired and they wouldn't bend the rules.

FMLA leave is governed by law. You’re not eligible until 1-year

There's no law that forbids you from giving someone time off without pay within that first year if you want to.

It's like when you get a privacy disclosure in the mail and it says "you can't limit the sharing of <some kind of information> because the law doesn't give you the right".

It's an excuse, not a reason.

But you specified they wouldn't give you FMLA leave, not unpaid leave. If that's how you requested it, then they wouldn't be able to give you that, due to FMLA itself.

Well, my boss encouraged me to apply anyway. I am sure he was not so obtuse as not to understand what I needed, and when I gave notice it didn't come as a shock.

As Umberto Eco said: what do I do when my thesis advisor is an arsehole? Answer: come on, dude, you knew that before!

I think the best social outcomes would come from reducing the risks involved with hiring, which means that companies should not be forced to pay for anything but actual work.

Put another way, the more you lobby for benefits, the less risk they take on anybody that might use them. You can try to fight this too with legislation, but it hasn’t and won’t ever work.

Pausing time-of-service calculations/benefits for off-payroll time is pretty common abd sensible.

A true family.

Wow! Who’d have imagined that?

Its true but only in certain states and only after 14 days of leave. It also appears that this only applies to 'Parental' leave as vesting continues like normal for 'Pregnancy' leave. I guess fathers and adoptive parents are taking a hit but mothers aren't. See [1] for details.

It does look like this setup has the potential to screw over an employee if they have a vesting date in the last 3 weeks of December and take their full 6 weeks of 'Parental' leave as it would shift a vest to the next calendar year thereby artificially inflating the compensation for that next year.

1. https://www.amazon.jobs/en/landing_pages/benefitsoverview-us

Comp doesn't work with calendar years though

6 weeks of parental leave is not enough, as anyone who has cared for a newborn can attest. 3 months should be the bare minimum for both the mother and father.

Funny, it never occurred to me that you'd get to continue vesting while not working (I have no idea the policies at my current or former employers).

I get that people respond emotionally to these things and just go with "Amazon bad, mothers good", but this policy just seems... obvious?

If it cancelled or reset to zero that would seem harsh and not in line with norms, but a policy of "you vest for each month you work" feels perfectly fair and reasonable to all employees.

I can see your point, however if vesting is a form of compensation, it seems reasonable that this form of compensation would continue with other forms such as healthcare insurance and salary.

How about promotions? Would you expect to be promoted up the corporate ladder while on extended leave?

The whole point of paid parental leave is that employees continue receiving a salary (and health insurance, 401k matching, etc). Logically one would expect that stock grants would vest during this time period too. Anything else unfairly penalizes new parents.

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