Company: Deloitte
Date: 2019-05-20
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

Parental Leave Disparity
Pros: Supportive team, wonderful coworkers, many opportunities for growth. Overall I am very happy at Deloitte
Cons: Maternity Leave Disparity: I am a consultant at one of the US delivery centers. The delivery center model supports at a lower cost to clients largely because we are situated in areas that are less expensive to operate overall, and we travel less. Our travel caps out at 30%. They market this as a way to work for Deloitte, but have a better work/life balance. I work closely with core consultants in my position and everyone on my USDC team has at least one graduate degree and 5+ years of experience. What they do not tell you when you join the USDC is that one of their cost saving measures was slashing parental leave. Standard core Deloitte speaks constantly and proudly about their 6 months parental leave. At the USDC we get 2 weeks. Then, if you’ve given birth, you get 5-6 weeks of short term disability pay. Beyond that you MUST max out your PTO before taking any additional time unpaid. On my immediate team there are 2 pregnant women right now (both with their first child). One is core, and excited about her 6 months (which won’t take away from her PTO at all). The other is USDC and stressed because she will have to take some unpaid leave and will have no PTO for infant emergencies when she returns in 12 weeks. They work the same hours, and my USDC colleague has a PhD and is in a significantly more important role on the project. It is also, I believe, important to note that in my office at the USDC the majority of our practitioners are immigrant women of color working in advanced tech consulting. I find it interesting that this massive disparity in policy happens to coincide with this demographic difference. I really enjoy working for Deloitte, but this parental leave policy is appalling and needs to be corrected.