Parental Leave - Solo Actuary

Professional Actuarial Topics General topics
1

I’m meeting with the C-suite tomorrow to discuss parental leave for when we adopt, probably within the next 18 months at most but potentially closer to 8 months from now. Our policy right now is purely an outdated maternity leave for births, which in itself is insufficient and being updated.

I’d like to get thoughts on my proposal below. Unfortunately, I just cannot take 12 solid weeks off. I’m hoping I can still get 12 broken-up weeks, but will be fighting for at least 8 paid weeks.

I think we’ll be getting the maximum adoption credit of ~$17k. Not as worried there.

I do our internal reserving, but for Actuarial Opinion time we do use an external consultant who concurrently runs their analysis. Still, in January and bleeding through February there is significantly more work, as I dial in my own analysis while interacting closely with the external consultants, giving them data or explanations as requested and iterating our analyses into a reasonable agreement before they sign off.

Each end-of-quarter (April, July, October, and the big one of January) has more work, but they get gradually more important as we get closer to year-end. April could be a simple data update and a check of our prior assumptions that nothing looks crazy. I could probably do that across 2 weeks of working at 50%. But the work would have to get done.

Proposal follows:

I’m asking for 12 weeks of paid parental leave, counted in full-time-equivalent weeks, to be used within 12 months of placement.

Placement timing is outside our control and could come on short notice, so this is a rule with an example for each month rather than a fixed calendar. The exact day of placement and our business needs at that time will require some adjustments. I’m happy to adjust this when we know more, but want to make sure we acknowledge if I am working longer hours than originally planned and adjust as appropriate.

January (worst placement)

  • 1 week off
  • Full-time Jan 8 to Mar 31 to finish Q4 and the annual statement
  • 50% for 2 weeks in April for Q1 close
  • 10 weeks off, Apr 20 to Jun 24
  • 12.0 weeks

February

  • 1 week off
  • 60% for 7 weeks, Feb 8 to Mar 31 (completion of Opinion/annual Statement)
  • 50% for 2 weeks in April for Q1 close
  • 7.2 weeks off, Apr 15 to Jun 4
  • 12.0 weeks

March

  • 1 week off
  • 60% for 3 weeks to finish Q4
  • 50% for 2 weeks in April for Q1
  • 8.8 weeks off, Apr 15 to Jun 16
  • 12.0 weeks

April

  • 1 week off
  • 50% for 2 weeks for Q1 close
  • 10 weeks off, Apr 22 to Jun 30
  • 12.0 weeks. Back July 1 for the close.

May

  • 8 weeks off, May 1 to Jun 26
  • 50% for 4 weeks for the July close
  • 2 weeks off
  • 12.0 weeks

June

  • 4 weeks off
  • 50% for 4 weeks for the July close
  • 6 weeks off, Aug 1 to Sep 11
  • 12.0 weeks

July

  • 1 week off
  • 50% for 4 weeks for the July close
  • 8 weeks off, Aug 5 to Sep 30
  • Back October 1 for close, 1 week banked for late October/November
  • 12.0 weeks

August

  • 7 weeks off, Aug 1 to Sep 18
  • 50% for 4 weeks for the October close
  • 3 weeks off
  • 12.0 weeks

September

  • 4 weeks off
  • 50% for 4 weeks for the October close, prep for year-close
  • 6 weeks off, Nov 1 to Dec 12
  • 12.0 weeks. Back before January year-close.

October

  • 1 week off
  • 50% for 4 weeks for the October close
  • 8 weeks off, Nov 5 to Dec 31
  • Back at 100% for January year-close
  • 1 more week off during February or March
  • 12.0 weeks. Back before January year-close.

November-December

  • 1-8 weeks off, Nov 1 to Dec 26
  • Full-time January through mid-February for year-close.
  • Remaining 4-11 weeks split between 50% work or fully off across February-May
  • 12.0 weeks.

We might also find some periods where taking time earlier makes sense. For example, if our Annual Statement is submitted in mid-March and the work is temporarily slow, I might take some leave earlier than the examples given and be back to work earlier.

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Have you benchmarked the 12 weeks? I get the sense 4-8 weeks is more common for parental leave, with an additional 6 or 8 for STD for birthing parents (depending on type of delivery). If you already have support for 12 weeks, then great!

Sorry if I missed it in your post (responding while waiting for a large file to update), but would adoption likely be a newborn? Toddler? Teen? Probably changes what I’d recommend around how much support you’ll both need. Does your partner work? What would their leave look like?

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3

I think you’re correct that 4-8 weeks, leaning toward 8 is probably more common. But 12 is not unheard of (PwC for example appears to have 12 including for adoption.) If they push it down toward 8 I won’t be that disappointed, but would be disappointed with 4… Especially since I’m setting the benchmark for all future policy, and we just had another couple get married who plans to adopt.

My partner presently works. We’re planning that they will continue to. However, their job is becoming less and less desirable and they might be making a career change… or being a SAHP is not out of the question. Overall that’s not too concerning since I make 75% of the income, and they could become a SAHP at the drop of a hat if we decided to. Just slows down our financial goals.

I will verify Partner’s leave policy today. They may only get 4 weeks “spousal leave”, unfortunately. We’d want that to overlap with my partial time as much as possible.

We are actually meeting with the adoption agency for the first time today in-person… will be gaining a lot of info shortly.

We are looking to adopt newborn, or close to. Looking at a private-placement situation vs foster-to-adopt at the moment, though I’m open to fostering.

BTW, we are waitlisted at 3 daycares right now under the assumption that Partner continues working. It’s also fortunate that our adult live-in godkid works as a literal nanny right now. We expect she’ll be living with us while we have the child, still. We don’t plan to use her as a full-time nanny because that’s too much mixing family and work, but she will be some built-in gap coverage.

4

You might want to think about painting a fuller picture of the process of adopting a newborn. For example, the people I know who adopted newborn had to stay in the birth state for several weeks at the time of delivery. In some ways, it almost had almost less flexibility than a more typical birth. As I understood and remember it, there was a lot of legal work to do that was very stressful.

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5

You bring up some good points that I’ll bring into the orientation meeting today.

We could also conceivably have a “false start” where we buy tickets and the mother changes her mind, or a birth complication, or the rare but real possibility that we take the baby home and they change their mind. That’d probably be some “time off” that could be considered paid leave before a formal schedule begins.

6

Is the adoption in-country? I know that internation adoptions often require an in-country visit plus an in-country stay before the adoption is complete and you’re allowed to bring the child to your country.

Also, is this request just for you? Or is part of the goal to also establish policy for future adoptors?

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7

The agency specializes in domestic, so I assume that’s the route we’re going. We might interview with another agency, though.

My specific request has to be unique, because I have no coverage. However, the general precedent is to set company policy as we break away from an overall outdated handbook. The other person I’m thinking of who just got married, is 1 of 6 accountants and could go away for 12 weeks and they’d be fine.

But I can’t completely step away from reserving. I’m hoping by the time I’m gone, we hire and train up a data analyst who can do some of my basic tasks. My CFO boss can review my work to make sure my sleep-addled brain didn’t do something crazy. Our external consultants are running their own analysis, so I really just need to make sure I update data correctly and make whatever tweaks seem reasonable. Likely not a lot changed from Q3 to Q4, etc. But I have to analyze the numbers to some degree.

8

I think you might be better off keeping the “time off” more flexible by way of just listing your work plans that you know will be needed for each month or quarter and supplement that list with the expected time commitment you’ll have once placement is done.

I think this might be easier for the Powers-That-Be to process the request and makes it far easier to “generalize” to a precedent if not a template for an outright policy.

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9

I’m taking this advice, in large part. I still have the schedule above when we get down to details… though, after talking with the agency some it’s going to require adjustments. When we talk later today, I’ll discuss that I have a rough plan that goes month-by-month which we could look at in more detail later. For now, as @Vorian_Atreides said, it’s important I list out vital responsibilities. Most critically that involves our quarterly reserving, but there are other cyclical and ad-hoc but important responsibilities such as data calls that generally fall on me today.

There is other, less predictable work.. but we will have to save that for my staggered time, and we engage with consultants for a number of things already.

I understand 12 weeks is a large ask, but I’m hoping they at worst negotiate me down to 8. 6 would be fine but doesn’t engender company loyalty in me. 4 would make me more likely to begin looking elsewhere. Though, I just got a meaningful promotion, and currently hope to stick it out for a while.

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10

Said adjustments being along the lines of what people above have said.

With the way we’re planning to adopt, we’ll expect about 3 to 6 weeks of being in the same state as the mother. Perhaps 1-2 weeks pre-due date, then possibly 1-2 weeks post-due date before inducement, then up to 2 weeks of remaining in the state before parental rights are fully transferred and complete. Sounds like they might encourage inducement more quickly if they know the parents are waiting to leave with the baby, but we’ll want what’s medically best for all.

We can WFH, particularly during any point before labor begins. If we had a worst-case placement like in the middle of January, I could reasonably be logging back on in a partial capacity before we leave the state, and might be banking some parental leave for later in the spring.

Or if placement was in a really ideal time like late April, I might be able to take several weeks off, followed by a short partial capacity and then a full return to work.

It will take discussion and planning as we begin “locking in” with a particular mother and things become more certain.

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11

Sorry if I missed it, but I’m wondering how long you have worked there.

As an employer, that would certainly have relevance

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12

I was hired as their Senior Actuary (and only actuary) about 1.5 years ago, and promoted to Chief Actuary a few months ago.

I know that prior hard work is only going to give me so much credit here, but the first year was an absolute dumpster fire of OT and my bosses know how much extra time I put in. I had to fix 2 years of consecutive consultants slowly breaking things. I imagine my boss will be a bit lenient about grey areas as long as the agreed-upon work can get done.

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13

No advice on offer, just wanted to say good luck! We’re all rooting for you. Especially those of us who have adopted - it’s certainly a journey, like no other. You can do it! I believe in you (both).

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14

I ended up doing a mixture… I presented to them more the concept of what I wanted, and explained how I had a plan to ensure total coverage of my core tasks. I hand-waved that we could dive into details as our plans became more crystallized, but I flashed to them a 48x48 grid (simplifying to 4 weeks/month) of Full, Half, and PTO Time divided by week of placement.

The CEO really liked that I had that ready. I don’t think I’m getting 12 paid weeks, though. He made some veiled mentions that as a tiny company, we aren’t subject to things like FMLA, but he wants to work with me and make sure I feel taken care of.

I’m suspecting 6, maybe 8 weeks paid are on the way. Doubt any more. TBD.

(Applying at a second agency today, too, before we’ve put down the deposit for the first.)

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