The leader in Catholic faith formation is making its comprehensive leave policies available as templates for use by other Catholic organizations.
In March, Ascension internally announced fully paid leave for maternity, paternity, miscarriage, personal illness, and family caregiving for employees. Now, Ascension is making these policies externally available as reference templates for use by other Catholic organizations.
**Ascension’s leave-policy templates can be found here**
“A lot of work went into the creation of these policies,” shares Ascension’s president and CEO Jonathan Strate. “Our teams worked hard and had the policies reviewed thoroughly for compliance with federal, state, and local law as well as an ethics review by the experts at the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC). We hope that other Catholic organizations can benefit from these templates as they develop their own leave policies.”
Core Features of the Ascension Pro-life Parental Leave Policy Update
Cassie Schmidt, senior manager of the People and Culture team at Ascension, explains that developing pro-life policies was a complex initiative. “When you’re looking at family leave policies, many secular policies provide for things like abortion that go against our Catholic values. It was an exciting challenge to develop policies that are authentically Catholic while also delivering the benefits that talented professionals expect from a successful, growing company.”
A Great Place to Work® … Especially for Working Parents
With 70% of its employees being working parents and the majority of employees being of childbearing age (51%), supporting team members in their family commitments is a top priority for success at Ascension.
“As a husband and father of six, I know firsthand the importance of balancing the dual calls to family life and professional life,” says Strate. “One of my top priorities is that our employees are able to care for their families in times of need and at the joyful addition of a new child.”
Schmidt comments that there are a variety of ways, both formal and informal, that Ascension supports working parents. “First, as a fully remote company, we make it easier for our employees to balance their commitments to their families with their workloads. Additionally, many of our teams encourage employees to flex their hours, which allows parents to be available at the times of the day which are the most important to their family life. Babies are welcome—and honestly celebrated!—on intra-Ascension Zoom calls, and employees are welcome to bring infants with them when it’s time to travel to our Pennsylvania offices for in-person meetings.”
Support for working parents was an important element of the recent redesign of the Ascension offices in Fall 2022. As the company downsized from its previously fully in-person location to a smaller office footprint, it added a dedicated Mother’s Room and a dedicated Children’s Room to the floor plan.
About Ascension
Ascension is a multimedia network and the leader in Catholic faith formation and digital content. Over the past 25 years, Ascension has helped nurture the faith of more than 10 million Catholics through award-winning books, the chart-topping Bible in a Year and Catechism in a Year podcasts, more than 50 unique faith formation programs, and Ascension Presents, which hosts the largest Catholic YouTube channel in English.
Media Contact
Media inquiries, please contact Lauren Joyce at Newsroom@AscensionPress.com