"Leave Report": An Innovative Resource for Informing Your Employee Benefits Plan Design

For five years now, Alera Group has published our increasingly popular Healthcare and Employee Benefits Benchmarking Report, a detailed look at the benefits offerings of employers nationwide. As both the number of participants in the survey that informs the report and the number of people who downloaded it grew each year, one topic emerged as a growing source of interest and inquiry: the amount and types of time off organizations grant their employees.  

Thus was born Alera Group’s 2024 Leave Report, a timely complement to — as well as outgrowth of — our recently released 2024 Healthcare and Employee Benefits Benchmarking Report. 

Well-sourced analysis 

Based on a survey of more than 1,040 organizations across the U.S., Alera Group’s 2024 Healthcare and Employee Benefits Leave Report provides insights into how businesses of different sizes, industries and regions are addressing employee leave, including holidays, vacation time, sick leave and other paid leave for common life events.  

The report is intended to provide you with the data you need to offer a competitive leave strategy while addressing the challenge of absence management. We’d love to hear from you whether you feel we delivered. 

Key findings 

In the course of researching and compiling the report six findings stood out – including some you may find surprising.  

• Employers pay for holidays. Regardless of employer size or industry, on average, 91% of companies surveyed offer paid holidays. Full-time employees are more likely to receive this benefit than part-time employees. 
• Juneteenth is increasingly becoming a recognized holiday. Although it has been a federal holiday only since 2021, 30% of survey respondents now offer it as a paid day off.  
• There’s no clear winner between traditional vs. banked time off. When asked about traditional paid time off (PTO) vs. a banked number of days, just over half of employers offer a bank of days, with only 10% of those employers offering an unlimited bank.  
• Paid parental leave is more common than family care leave. More employers are offering paid parental leave over family care leave. Employers are more likely to cover 100% of the employee’s income during paid parental leave than during paid family care leave.  
• The larger the employer, the more likely it is to outsource FMLA leave tracking. Outsourcing FMLA leave tracking is more prevalent among large employers with 500 or more employees. Employers below this threshold are more likely to track FMLA leave in house, either manually or through payroll.  
• Bereavement leave is common. While bereavement leave is common among employers of all sizes, other leave types are emerging as employers look to attract and retain employees. These include volunteer leave, sabbatical and designated mental health days. 

Next steps 

What you do with the information you’ll find in the report will depend largely on the factors that make your business unique.  A detailed look at what businesses similar to yours are offering will help you refine your time-off policies to position yourself as an employer of choice. Alera Group’s Leave Report provides that look. 

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT 

About the authors 

Karen English, ACI, AU, ARM, CPCU 
 
National Absence Management Practice Leader  
Alera Group Boston  

Karen English has more than 20 years of experience in the property and casualty and health and welfare arenas, with an emphasis on  disability, FMLA, PFML, other leave, and Workers’ Compensation Insurance.  Her areas of focus include integrated absence management for employers of all sizes and industries, strategy and product development for insurance and service providers, research and benchmarking, technology improvement, and implementation.  . She is committed to determining how disability, absence management and health management programs can be integrated into her clients’ benefit programs, and she uses that research to develop employee-focused solutions that provide cost savings for the employer.  

Contact information: 

• karen.english@springgroup.com 
• Connect with Karen on LinkedIn 

Marcy Updike 
National Director, Market Research 
Alera Group 

Marcy Updike has more than two decades of experience in market research, customer analytics and product insights. She became Alera Group’s National Director of Market Research in 2022. Her primary responsibilities include project management of Alera Group’s employee benefits benchmarking survey and tool. In addition, Marcy works with the Alera Group offices around the country to develop thought-leadership research and meet the informational needs of our clients. 

Contact Information: 

• marcy.updike@aleragroup.com 
• Connect with Marcy on LinkedIn