[DD Amasa]

My company does give a $5,000 gift for adoption expenses but only unpaid FMLA. I can use vacation time for some of it (I only get three weeks vacation) but the rest is unpaid. And I can't use any of my sick days, and I have five weeks of that accumulated (for what purpose? More than five days is short term disability and that's separate).

[saranbr]

Neither of our companies provided any assistance at the time. My husband works for a small company which explains that and mine (now former employer!) is just plain greety best I can tell. My new employer provides $3000/kid plus normal maternity policies which allow use of sick and annual leave for up to 12 weeks (unpd FMLA if that has not been accumulated).

[WaitingforJacob]

My company offers a $5000 adoption benefit, but no paid time off. I used 4 weeks vacation time. At that point school started (we adoped a 6 year old) and he started kindergarten. I worked while he was at half day kindergarten (2 1/2 hrs), but my company paid me full time. This isn't a published benefit, but something my department did for me. I did this for 5 weeks and then returned to work full time.


Kathy

[Larue]

In your discussion with your employer I'd recommend highlighting that providing adoption benefits would enhance "goodwill", and increase employee morale and retention rates. Happy employees are productive employees! Make them see "what's in it for them".

Employee turnover is very costly. When you consider training costs, and the loss of productivity due to the learning curve.

[widgit]

I've heard that Microsoft has great maternity/paternity & adoption expense benefits. Do you know anyone who works there? You could use their policy as a benchmark possibly.

[SisterBear]

DH's former company provided $5K toward adoption. However, we are self-employed now. I asked our CPA if we could give ourselves adoption benefits through our company and she said nope. I was thinking we would be a very generous company who gave, lets say, $30K towards adoption expenses!

[Mindybeth6]

Police officer and a teacher...no benefits here. FMLA only.

[beanmollybean]

My employer gives a $5,000 benefit per child adopted. This excludes families where one parent is adoptiong the others biological child. I know the leave is 10-12 weeks, same as maternity, but I do not know how the maternity leave works.