DiscussMormonism.com

In a move that aligns with many U.S. businesses, the LDS Church will now offer its employees family-friendly and wellness benefits.

The Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — the largest employer in the Beehive State — also is providing short-term disability benefits and has loosened its dress code to include colored shirts for men and dress pants for women.

These changes were announced Wednesday in an internal memo from Mormon officials to thousands of full-time employees at LDS Church headquarters in downtown Salt Lake City, its four church-owned colleges (Brigham Young University, BYU-Idaho, BYU-Hawaii and LDS Business College) and to paid professionals with the Church Educational System.

Going forward, full-time, benefited employees who give birth "will be eligible for six weeks of paid medical maternity leave to recover from childbirth," the policy memo reads.

At the same time, full-time, benefited employees also can take one week of "paid parental leave," the church document says, "to bond with their new children from birth or adoption." For mothers who give birth, this means an additional week of leave.

As to the dress-code changes, headquarters will now allow women to don professional pantsuits as well as skirts and dresses, and men may wear light-colored shirts with ties, and remove their jackets when weather is hot or for "movement through the building."

In May 2011, the male-dominated church made a similar nod to the discomforts of weather, when it eliminated the pantyhose requirement for female employees at headquarters, allowing them to go barelegged.

Quasimodo wrote:Are Elders now allowed to wear skirts and dresses?

Quasimodo wrote:Are Elders now allowed to wear skirts and dresses?

sunstoned wrote:This press release should be viewed as an embarrassment to the church.

Arminius wrote:

sunstoned wrote:This press release should be viewed as an embarrassment to the church.

Why should change be viewed as embarrassment? Especially if it is change that is considered improvement?

If we learned that a neighbor waiited 7 years to improve on something, and that happened today, should we criticize him/her for what seems to be a long delay?

Or simply commend & cheer them on for taking that step?

In a statment Elder Quentin L. Cook said: "I would hope that Latter-day Saints would be at the forefront in creating an environment in the workplace that is more receptive and accommodating to both men and women."