Boost Your Benefit Offerings with Adoption and Foster Care Support

With the workforce’s ever-increasing emphasis on personalized benefits, support for all manners of forming a family — including adoption and foster care — is becoming more of a priority for some workers.

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption’s 18th annual 100 Best Adoption-Friendly Workplaces list showcases organizations across 22 industries that are leading the way.

Research data shows the need is significant:

About 40% of Americans have considered adopting a child or becoming foster parents — and they often can’t do it without employer support.
Sixty-four percent of Americans cited employer assistance with adoption expenses as key in their decision to adopt, and 68% referenced paid leave.
More than 365,000 U.S. children are currently in foster care (a statistic brought to light for May’s designation as National Foster Care Month). More than 100,000 of those children were waiting to be adopted in 2022.

Employers that participated in the 2024 Dave Thomas Foundation survey offered an average of $16,422 in financial reimbursement for adoption costs, up 10% from 2023. The average amount of paid leave was 9.6 weeks, a 6% increase over 2023. The amount of paid leave offered to foster parents also grew to an average of 9.7 weeks, up 3% from last year. These trends mark “significant growth,” according to foundation president and CEO Rita Soronen.

Companies Leading the Charge

For the third consecutive year, Ferring Pharmaceuticals holds the top spot on the top-100 workplaces list. The company offers parents, including adoptive parents, up to 26 weeks of paid leave, with an extra four weeks per child in the case of multiple births or adoptions, and unlimited reimbursement for adoption-related expenses. The company also offers foster parenting support and resources (although its paid leave does not extend to foster parents) and flexible transitions for parents returning to work.

“Several new health care organizations participated in the 2024 survey, which was exciting to see,” Soronen said. “In coming years, we hope to see growth in all industries.”

Walmart Inc., which came in at No. 46 on the 2024 list, collaborated with the Dave Thomas Foundation to build a “quite robust” set of benefits, Soronen said. The company, which also offers paid foster leave, ranked No. 2 (behind Nvidia) on the foundation’s separate “impact” list, measuring the overall reach of large companies.

Exploring Adoption Benefits

In general, adoption benefits most commonly include information or referral services, paid or unpaid leave, and financial assistance. Adoption costs can vary significantly, from $2,500 to $50,000 (not including lost wages from taking time off), according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

While these benefits are becoming more common (in 1990, only 12% of U.S. companies offered adoption benefits), a significant proportion of businesses still don’t offer them.

In WorldatWork’s 2022 Inventory of Total Rewards Programs & Practices, 39% of participating businesses offered adoption assistance (up from 28% in 2016), and 29% offered adoption reimbursement (up from 18% in 2016). Technology companies, larger businesses and private-sector, publicly traded organizations were more likely than other demographic employer groups to offer those benefits.

Don’t Omit Foster Benefits

A foster placement generally requires immediate action, such as outfitting a home, enrolling children in school or daycare, and spending time making them feel comfortable and safe — all of which are more feasible with employer support, Soronen said.

Only 25% of companies in SHRM’s 2023 Employee Benefits Survey offered foster leave, compared to 34% offering adoption leave.

But some organizations are catching up. Employers that participated in the 2024 Dave Thomas Foundation survey offered an average of 9.7 weeks of paid leave to foster parents, a 3% improvement when compared to participants in the 2023 survey.

In another emerging benefit offering, 8% of companies planned to offer financial foster care assistance in 2023, according to Mercer’s Health and Benefits Strategies report.

“Recognizing the needs that foster parents in the workplace have helps to assure the safety of thousands of children every year,” Soronen said.

Why These Benefits Are Important — and How to Get Started

Today’s employees value personalized benefits — including those covering adoption and foster care — that support their individual experience and life stage, said Alicia Scott-Wears, a content director at WorldatWork.

“The employee benefits landscape in 2024 has shifted personalization from a trend to an expectation,” Scott-Wears said. “Now more than ever, employees are laser-focused on [benefits] that enhance their particular experience.”

Consider the following action steps to help your organization progress in this particular area:

Include adoptive and foster parents in paid parental leave programs.
Offer financial reimbursement for adoption or foster expenses.
Provide employees resources, such as those from the Child Welfare Information Gateway (foster care and adoption) and Children’s Bureau.
Utilize the Dave Thomas Foundation’s free toolkit and participate in the annual corporate survey.

More than two-thirds of companies recognized on Great Place to Work’s Best Workplaces for Parents list offered adoption benefits. Doing so can create goodwill even among employees who don’t intend to use those benefits, Soronen said.

“These benefits are beginning to be something that employees simply expect to be in place,” she said.

While these benefits are a relatively small investment in comparison to other benefits, given the limited number of individuals who will use them over the course of a year, Soronen said, “They can have a life-changing impact for those who need them.”

Editor’s Note: Additional Content

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