After announcing that she is expecting her first child, a baby boy due in November, Whitney Wolfe Herd has admitted that she is revisiting the parental benefits that are offered to Bumble employees.
The social app already offers extensive assistance to its new parents, but the CEO believes she can do more.
Workers at Bumble currently get four months of paid leave, which can be taken all at once or spread throughout the year. They also receive a $1,000 bonus after having a baby to offset childcare costs while they’re at work.
Furthermore, parents have flexible start times, get reimbursed for using breast-milk delivery services, and benefit from a dedicated nursing room.
When Bumble moves to its new headquarters in Austin next year, Wolfe Herd wants a dedicated childcare space where employees’ children can be looked after by a specialist childcare professional.
She told Fast Company: “I’ve always wanted parents to prioritize their children’s well-being alongside their job. So I never wanted them to feel like they have to choose one or the other.
“Now that I myself am pregnant, I understand, just from the basic demands of needing to go to a doctor’s appointment on a certain week, that I can’t imagine the stress that someone might feel who can’t make their own hours.
“So I’m really starting to think about the white space on the beforehand and after-hand of that actual [maternity-paternity] leave. And making sure that once a parent does come back to work, how do we do that in a flexible way?”
Bumble is well-known for its perks, especially the bi-monthly beauty treatments the majority female workforce is entitled to.
Earlier this month, Forbes ranked Wolfe Herd as the 72nd richest self-made woman in the USA, with an estimated net worth of $290 million.
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