Supporting Our Working Parents

When Lead Technologist Tuyet-Anh ("Anh") Nguyen joined Booz Allen in 2002, she says the firm's benefits and focus on work-life balance played a role in her decision. “Although I wasn’t a parent,” Anh recalls, “I knew that Booz Allen had regularly been recognized as a best place to work for working mothers, and offered the benefits and flexibility that would become important when my husband and I started our family.”

That day came sooner than expected. Unbeknownst to her, Anh was in her first weeks of pregnancy when she began working at Booz Allen, and she’d be experiencing some of those benefits she’d sought in an employer mere months later.

“In addition to the overall maternity leave and health benefits, the firm’s flex culture made a world of difference,” Anh says. “My first pregnancy was high risk, and my son was a preemie. My team allowed me to work remotely and with a flexible schedule throughout that critical time."

Booz Allen’s flex opportunities aren’t reserved just for employees dealing with adversity. Whether formally or informally, 80 percent of respondents in our most recent employee survey—working moms and dads, and non-parents alike—reported that they work a flexible schedule, and 75 percent said that they regularly telecommute.

Associate Amy Schossler is another working mom who’s enjoyed flexibility over her 10 years at the firm. “Not only did Booz Allen’s incredible benefits help us get the fertility treatments we needed to have our first child,” she says, “but the firm allowed me to take 5 months off after her birth and come back with a reduced, 80 percent work week. As my family grew, I had the flexibility to adjust my schedule to balance my career and my family’s needs. The ability to spend time with my young children while remaining competitive and active in the workforce has made all the difference to me as a working parent.”

In the U.S.—where 70 percent of women in the workforce have children under 18—only:

• 5 percent of companies offer fully paid maternity leave
• 17 percent offer paid paternity and/or paid adoption leave
• 7 percent offer adoption assistance

Booz Allen offers all three.

Data referenced comes from: 2015 Moms@Work: The Working Mother Report; 2014 National Study of Employers, Family and Work Institute; and 2015 Benefits survey of Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) members.

In addition to flex opportunities, Booz Allen is committed to providing our working parents with benefits, policies, programs, and a corporate culture that supports them as they balance work and family responsibilities and we create a workforce for our second century.

What’s more, the firm’s parental leave policies extend to all of our parents—birth mothers and fathers, single parents, adoptive parents, and same-sex/LGBT parents; exempt and non-exempt employees; and full-time and part-time employees. And if both parents are employees, they each receive parental leave for the birth or adoption of a child. Booz Allen’s adoption assistance program—which provides a $5,000 reimbursement per adoption (for a child not biologically related to either parent)—is also available to, and the same for, all of our adoptive parents.

Other family-friendly offerings include everything from a childcare center at our headquarters, nationwide childcare discounts, and firm-sponsored family events, to backup childcare, and dedicated employee forums for parents, women, military spouses, and flexworkers.