Starting next year, Deloitte and Zoom are cutting back on some of the most treasured employee benefits, Business Insider reports.
Zoom is cutting parental leave from 22 to 24 weeks down to 18 weeks, while non-birthing parents will get 10 weeks instead of 16. As for Deloitte, broader cuts to PTO, pension plans and IVF funding will impact employees in support roles like administrative services, IT and finance.
Experts warn that Deloitte and Zoom may be paving the way for other companies to follow their lead.
“It legitimizes that action for everybody else,” former Google head of human resources Laszlo Bock told Business Insider.
The announced cuts struck a nerve with people, with some professionals on LinkedIn saying the benefit reductions sound like a reason to “boycott” the companies. Others worried that the cuts would harm women in the workplace.
As disgruntled as employees may be, though, experts say that they might not have the upper hand in fighting back against the benefit cuts.
According to this year’s employee benefit trends study by MetLife, 35% of workers said they are staying at their jobs because the current job market feels too risky. In the MetLife survey of 2,550 full-time U.S. employees, vacation, disability and paid parental leave were the most prized benefits.
With a sluggish job market, increased performance expectations, demand for AI usage in workflows and fears of unemployment, employees are getting the short end of the stick: leave and risk landing a new opportunity in a turbulent job market, or hold on to a job and put up with benefit cuts.
In the long run, benefit reductions could lead to a decrease in employee productivity. Still, some experts portrayed benefit cuts as a strategic choice that can help companies avoid mass layoffs.
“If they feel that they can improve the profitability of the firm by getting rid of some of these benefits, they will,” HR analyst and consultant Josh Bersin told Business Insider. “It’s definitely better than layoffs.”
Between burnt-out middle managers and disagreements around AI policies, workplace tensions are already prevalent. Add in cuts to highly valued benefits, and employee loyalty and performance might become an even more open question.