One of those companies, General Mills, will offer new moms 18 to 20 weeks of paid-time-off, more than double what it was offering. The company also now allows fathers, domestic partners and adoptive parents to get 12 weeks of paid-time-off, while caregivers are afforded two weeks of leave with pay to care for sick family.
"Companies here in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul market are definitely looking at enhancing benefits," says Tiffany Kuehl, director of the Twin Cities chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management. "You want employees... committed to your organization so when you're offering things like extended parental leave, things that are important to your employees [and] that align with their values and your company's values, employees are more likely to stay."