Ask the U.K. boss of streaming giant Spotify about his proudest achievement last year, and you might be surprised to find music, podcasts, and audiobooks exempt from the conversation.
But when you’ve spent half that time caring for your newborn child, it probably puts things in perspective.
“That was harder than being a managing director, without a doubt,” Tom Connaughton, Spotify’s U.K. managing director, told Fortune as he got his feet back under the table of the $35 billion company after taking advantage of its incredibly generous parental leave policy.
“It’s long hours, you don’t get much feedback, and any feedback you do get is kind of shouted or cried out.”
6 months at full pay for parents
Spotify allows parents to take six months of fully paid leave when they have a child, whether they’re a mother or a father. It can be taken anytime during the three years after a child is born and is also provided to adoptive parents.
Even Connaughton’s senior role didn’t preclude him from taking up the full perk.
The father of two, who has been in charge of Spotify’s U.K. operations since 2018, looks back at that time as a chance to form a unique bond with his new child and enjoy an uninterrupted summer with his growing family.
But with the hindsight of the maelstrom of new fatherhood under his belt, he also doesn’t know how he or any other new parents ever managed to work in the days and weeks after the birth of their child.
“I think back to those first weeks together as a new family. It’s beautiful, but it’s so relentless. And I couldn’t imagine having to make decisions at work in that period. When you’re hallucinating, have no sleep, I don’t think you should be at work.”
Connaughton took eight weeks when his child was first born just after Christmas, before returning to work for three months. He took the remaining four months of paid leave over the summer.
But it was still difficult for Connaughton, who had his first child at a company with a much more restrictive parental leave policy, to initially embrace the benefits himself. However, he says a conversation with his manager allayed his fears.
“There was an element of Spotify wanting me to lead by example and setting the right precedent for our team,” Connaughton said.
“I think a welcome side effect of me taking my parental leave entitlement has been that others in the business hopefully feel more comfortable doing so.”
Spotify’s policy isn’t just intended to give its employees family time and much-needed rest. It’s also part of a wider attempt to confront one of the most prominent inequalities in the workforce.
The motherhood penalty
The gender wage gap is a pervasive issue that engrosses nearly every country’s economy, averaging 11.9% across the OECD.
There are many reasons for the stubbornness of the gap despite several attempts at rebalancing, including structural issues and flat-out discrimination.
But a significant contributor is thought to be the “motherhood penalty”—the slower salary growth a woman sees compared to her male colleagues after giving birth.
This partly comes from the career break typically taken by mothers to care for their newborn. Some groups, including Spotify, see the solution in offering fathers the same benefits.
Others like drinks supplier Diageo and retail bank M&G join Spotify in providing six months of fully paid leave to some or all of its new fathers and mothers. New parents at Netflix take up to eight months of paid leave.
It’s unsurprising that Spotify, a Swedish company co-founded by native CEO Daniel Ek, is ahead of the curve on that potential solution. Sweden ranked top in a Unicef review of family-friendly policies across countries.
The U.S., meanwhile, ranked worst in class when it came to statutory parental leave, both for mothers and fathers. The average American father takes just one week of paternity leave, according to research from jobs website Zippia, a fraction of the amount Connaughton and his colleagues took.
But Spotify’s policy—which extends to its U.S. employees—isn’t just an outlier on a national level. It also stands out against Fortune 500 companies.
A 2020 study of America’s biggest companies by academics at Bell State University found more than a third offered mothers twice as much parental leave as fathers.
There’s good reason to believe upping paid paternity leave is the answer to partly closing the gender wage gap. Research compiled by McKinsey found paternity leave reduces the gap by increasing mothers’ wages in the short term and helping to increase household income in the long term.
‘A no-brainer’
A tenth of Spotify’s employees took parental leave under the company’s policy last year, according to Connaughton, and almost three-fifths of those were male. One of them was new starter Paul Blyth, a senior software engineer.
When Blyth was approached by the group’s recruitment team in early 2022, he was just excited that he might finally get to work for a company that his friends had heard of.
Then reality set in. Blyth’s partner Laura was four months pregnant with the couple’s first child when he got the call from Spotify, and he worried he might not be eligible for the company’s parental benefits package if he took the job.
Blyth says he was assured that provided he passed a short probationary period, he was entitled to the same benefits as colleagues who had been there for years.
“At that point, it was almost a no-brainer,” Blyth told Fortune. “It was huge for us as a family.” He took the job in March, and his son was born in June.
Like Connaughton, it was quite the culture shock for Blyth, who at his previous company recalls a U.S. colleague dialing into a work call from a hospital bathroom after his partner had just given birth.
“I was like, I don’t want to be that kind of person.” But during paternity leave, he was also reminded of the U.K.’s own shortcomings on parental benefits.
Blyth said he was often the only male in attendance at parenting classes. A friend who attended one class was only able to do so by taking vacation time.
“I think I developed a bond with my son that I wouldn’t have had otherwise, the development process day to day is amazing.
“If I had been working, you wouldn’t get time to see things like that.”
Blyth says the benefits extended to his partner, who was able to go to reboarding days at her work while he looked after their son, speeding up her transition back into the workforce.
Connaughton’s wife was also able to go back to work earlier than planned while he parented the children by himself for the last month of his paternity leave.
More to be done
There are still many obstacles to reducing the “motherhood penalty,” particularly what happens when parental leave ends.
Childcare costs are expensive and rising fast, increasing by 60% between 2010 and 2021 in the U.K., according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. This has made it financially irrational for both parents to continue working in many families.
Typically, the burden falls on the mother to give up her career. Research from the Fawcett Society suggests childcare costs have pushed nearly 250,000 women out of the workforce. A study published by the group Wednesday said a lack of flexible working options for women would keep the U.K.’s gender pay gap—currently at £6,888 ($8,625)—in place until 2051.
However, Spotify continues to install a flexible working policy for employees. That has let Blyth—who lives a four-hour train ride from Spotify’s U.K. offices—enjoy caregiver responsibilities even when he’s back at work. It also allowed him to live near family who could lighten the load.
Connaughton says part of his job has involved bringing other companies around to this flexible structure, though it’s not always easy.
One executive from a Zurich bank asked him how could be sure his employees weren’t skipping off on a paddleboard at 5 pm on a Friday afternoon if they weren’t in the office.
His reply?
“I’d much rather our team on a paddleboard at five o’clock than signed off burnt out.”
