Two prominent topics that sit at the heart of leave and disability program management are: i) the rapidly evolving paid leave landscape and, ii) the strategic decision of how to structure leave administration (which we blogged about last year1). This year, we want to connect those threads because the external pressure and the internal program are not separate conversations. They're the same one.
The Ground Is Still Moving.
If you've been managing leave programs for any length of time, the last few years have probably felt less like steady progress and more like navigating a moving floor. And while multiple, long-standing federal proposals remain active in concept and/or reintroduction, Congress has not made meaningful progress toward enacting a universal paid family and medical leave (PFML) law. Hence, PFML laws have proliferated and expanded from a handful of states to a growing national patchwork. Paid sick leave (PSL) laws have broadened in scope, flexibility, and family definition, making even well-designed company policies feel outdated. And the pace isn't slowing.