For most countries around the world, school is out, and parents are reconnecting with their kids to enjoy road trips and long days. Many of our Mozilla employees have benefited from the expanded parental leave program we introduced last year to spend quality time with their families. The program offers childbearing parents up to 26 weeks of fully paid leave and non-childbearing (foster and adoptive parents, partners of childbearing) parents up to 12 weeks of fully paid leave.

This July, we completed the global roll out of the program making Mozilla a leader in the tech industry and among organizations with a worldwide employee base.

What makes Mozilla’s parental leave program unique

And sets us apart from other tech companies and other organizations:

2016 Lookback: A benefit for employees who welcomed a child in the calendar year prior to the expanded benefit being rolled out.

Global Benefit: As a US-based company with employees all over the world, we chose to offer it to employees around the world — US, Canada, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan.

Fully Paid Leave: For all parents, they’ll receive their full salary during that time.

What our Mozilla employees have to say:

“Our second son was born in January 2017. When I heard about the new policy that Mozilla will launch globally one month before, I first was not sure how that will work out with the statutory parental leave rules in Germany. But I have to say that I first enjoyed working with Rachel to work out all the details — and now I get enjoy a summer with my family. The second child has changed my life completely, it was hard to match work and family needs. I am grateful that I will have time to give back to my son and my family and grow even more closer together.” Dominik Strohmeier, based in Berlin, Germany. Two children, with second child born in 2017.

“Our daughter was born in 2016,” says Chelsea Novak, Firefox Editorial Lead. “When Mozilla announced this new parental leave policy we were excited for parents that were expecting in 2017, but a little sad that we missed out. Having Mozilla extend these new parental leave benefits to us was very generous and gave us some precious time with our family that we weren’t expecting.” Chelsea and Matej Novak, both longtime Canadian Mozilla employees, based in Toronto. Two children, ages 1 and 3.

“Being able to take advantage of the 26 weeks of leave — and have the flexibility of when to take it — was an incredible gift for our family. Knowing that the company was so supportive made the experience as stress free as having a newborn can be! I’m so grateful to work for such a progressive and kind company — not just in policies but in culture and practice.” Maura Tuohy, based in San Francisco. Her first child was born in 2017.

This program helps us embrace and celebrate families of all kinds, whether its adoption and foster care, we expanded our support for both childbearing and non-childbearing parents, independent of gender or situation. We value our Mozilla employees, because juggling between work and family responsibilities is no easy feat.