The time-saving system behind Bumble’s incredible parental leave policy

Bumble is the revolutionary women-first dating platform bringing people closer to love. Founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd in 2014, Bumble made waves as the first dating app to put women at the center.

Over the years, Bumble has introduced BFF for friendship and community, gone public, refined their mission, advanced their policies, garnered legislative change, and grown their workforce.

As a company dedicated to building respectful and lasting relationships, Bumble knows the importance of fostering healthy connections with their employees. “We aim to support people during important life stages on our platform, and we believe that same commitment should extend to our employees,” said Mairead Pettit, Senior Manager of People Operations at Bumble.

That’s why they’ve built a robust and inclusive benefits package. Along with comprehensive healthcare, Bumble offers employees a monthly wellness stipend, 401(k) matching, family growth and fertility assistance, unlimited paid time off, a company-wide shutdown week, and an annual career development allowance.

“We design our benefits with key pillars in mind, addressing our employees’ physical, mental, and financial health,” Pettit explained.

One of Bumble’s most impressive employee benefits is their parental leave; the company provides 26 weeks of fully paid leave for primary and secondary caregivers following the birth, adoption, or surrogacy of a child.

“Being women-first has always shaped how we think about supporting our people,” said Ricki Auerbach, Bumble’s Senior People Operations Specialist, Global. “That means recognizing the realities and milestones that can have an outsized impact on women and families, and building benefits, including maternity and parental leave, that provide meaningful support during those moments.”

As the company’s workforce expanded, Bumble decided to enlist Sparrow’s help for full-service employee leave management.

The challenge: Managing leave admin without an established process

Prior to partnering with Sparrow, Bumble’s People Ops team managed leaves internally. “There were many intricacies with different state leave laws that we needed to account for,” said Auerbach.

When Bumble employees started moving across the US after the company transitioned to a remote-first workforce, Bumble required more resources to maintain compliance.

“We always prioritize giving personal attention to our employees, especially during leaves,” she explained, but they no longer had the bandwidth to coordinate with employees, navigate state laws, and calculate payroll.

The People Ops team needed a more efficient way to execute their employee leave policy, so they started looking for leave management vendors.

The solution: Partner with Sparrow to streamline each stage of leave management

Teaming up with Sparrow eliminated the majority of Auerbach’s admin work, giving her team a defined leave management structure and system to work within.

“Sparrow makes the whole leave process seamless from an admin standpoint,” she said. “We enter an employee’s email address into Sparrow’s dashboard, then Sparrow handles it all from there. It takes less than five minutes.”

Sparrow Leave Specialists set up individual intake calls with each Bumble employee who requests a leave; during the calls, they go over the employee’s benefits and answer questions. Then Sparrow creates a custom leave plan, adds it to the Sparrow dashboard, and fills out state benefits paperwork—on behalf of the People Ops team and the employee taking leave.

At any point, Auerbach and her team can log onto Sparrow’s dashboard to see an overview of company leaves or pull out individual leave dates and details. “It’s very clear,” she said. “We can go in and easily see when someone’s on leave or what their leave plan is.”

“Our payroll team loves being able to see which portion of an employee’s pay comes from short-term disability versus the state versus the company. Sparrow makes it very clear.”

Another helpful dashboard feature? A breakdown of each employee’s pay on leave. “Our payroll team loves being able to see which portion of an employee’s pay comes from short-term disability versus the state versus the company. Sparrow makes it very clear,” she added.

Sparrow also sets up automatic payroll calculations for Bumble and delivers custom payroll reports every pay period. “With all the different state leave laws, it makes our payroll system much easier,” Auerbach explained.

“It frees up our time to hand compliance and paperwork over to the professionals at Sparrow.”

Compliance is also easier to ensure. The Sparrow team has a deep understanding of each state’s unique leave laws, so they make sure Bumble employees receive all the protections and benefits they’re entitled to, while the company takes advantage of wage replacement from state offerings.

“It frees up our time to hand compliance and paperwork over to the professionals at Sparrow,” said Auerbach. “We recently refreshed our leave policy for global alignment, and Sparrow made sure it was compliant and equitable, which was great.”

“Our employees really appreciate having someone who can answer their questions right away and make them feel comfortable during a milestone event.”

Enhancing employee support during leave

When it comes to Bumble’s employee leave experience, Sparrow’s handholding and expertise complement Bumble’s internal efforts. “Our employees really appreciate having someone who can answer their questions right away and make them feel comfortable during a milestone event,” Auerbach said.

Sparrow handles changes in leave cases with grace and speed, keeping everyone up to date and making sure employees have what they need to focus on themselves and their families, instead of stressing over certification documents and payments.

“On leave, your mind is everywhere other than admin and logistics,” said Auerbach. “Sparrow has been especially helpful in emergency leave situations. They’ve spoken to our employees and handled each situation with the same care we aim to provide our team each day.”

With Sparrow in their corner, Bumble manages employee leaves with more ease, pay transparency, and peace of mind around compliance.