Employees of Montgomery County have been provided with a new benefit, according to a statement issued by the Montgomery County Commissioners.

“The Montgomery County Commissioners announced a new parental leave policy for eligible county employees that will provide up to six weeks of paid parental leave during the 12 months immediately following the birth, adoption, guardianship or foster care placement of a child,” according to the statement.  “The new policy goes into effect starting February 1st and will apply to all full-time employees regardless of gender who are not represented by a union or bargaining unit.”

“We recognize the importance of assisting our employees who become new parents to achieve a work-life balance,” said Dr. Val Arkoosh, Chair of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners.  “By doing so, we help ourselves by providing a benefit that has been shown to help employees, families, and communities and will lead to increased morale and decreased turnover.  We fully expect this policy also will improve our ability to recruit and retain high quality employees to better serve our residents”

According to the statement, “Montgomery County is the first suburban county in Southeastern Pennsylvania to adopt a paid parental leave policy.”

This new policy will allow employees to take “the six weeks paid leave…as a block of time or on an intermittent basis within the first year of the birth, adoption, guardianship, or foster care placement,” according to the statement.

Employees, according to Montgomery County, will be able to use this new policy alongside the existing “12-week Family and Medical Leave Act…[This means] an employee can take the six weeks of paid leave and an additional six weeks of leave that will be either unpaid or use accumulated vacation, personal or sick time.”