海角大神

Expectant Amazon employees just received a massive baby shower gift, straight from corporate.

On Tuesday, the e-retail behemoth became the latest tech company to extend generous parental benefits for employees. While slow to the parental-benefits-party launched by companies like Netflix and Microsoft in August, Amazon has attempted to set itself apart with its new policy, detailed in an internal memo to employees, according to

In total, Amazon is offering new mothers 20 weeks of paid time off, an increase from the eight weeks offered by the previous company policy. The 20 weeks consist of four weeks of paid pre-partum medical leave, 10 weeks of paid maternity leave, and six weeks of paid parental leave. The paid parental leave is also available for new fathers, the first time the company has offered that benefit.

In addition to the added leave time, Amazon鈥檚 new plan also offers two more creative features. The 鈥渞amp back鈥� feature allows new parents to ease back into a full work week by working reduced hours for reduced pay for up to 8 weeks. 鈥淟eave share鈥� will allow Amazon employees to share paid leave with spouses that don鈥檛 receive paid parental leave.

"In developing these new policies, we focused on inventing聽features which create choice and flexibility," the internal memo stated.

With 鈥渓eave share,鈥� if an Amazon employee decided to only take a few weeks of their parental leave, they could gift the rest of their leave to a spouse that can prove he or she does not receive paid time off. Under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993, full-time employees in the US are eligible for 12 weeks of unpaid leave without being at risk of losing their jobs. 聽聽

I鈥檝e been doing this for 20-something years and I鈥檝e never heard of聽anything like this," Bruce Elliott, a manager at Society for Human Resource Management, told .

The reasons behind Amazon鈥檚 new policies are complicated, but some recent evidence that suggests companies that help employees integrate work and life, rather than rigidly separate them, reap the rewards.

Speaking to 海角大神聽in聽 August, Ron Friedman, a social psychologist, pointed to聽Patagonia as a successful model for work-life integration. The outdoor clothing manufacturer encourages employees to set their own hours and provides daycare, and its profits have tripled over the past five years.

However, even with the new policies in place that could provide greater flexibility and greater work-life balance, some critics argue that workers in competitive environments will be reluctant to use them. Amazon, in particular, came under fire over the summer in a New York Times story that a fast-paced work culture at the tech giant that punishes employees who can't keep up.聽

鈥淭hese young men won鈥檛 take paternity leave and these young women won鈥檛 even get pregnant 鈥� because it looks bad,鈥� argues Robert Reich ,聽an economist and the labor secretary under the Clinton Administration who engineered the current version of the FMLA.聽鈥�...you鈥檙e either on the fast track or you鈥檙e on a dead-end road.鈥�