FITB Fifth Third Bancorp

By Rachel Feintzeig 

When Lexus Smith found out that her second child would likely arrive weeks before his due date, she tapped an unlikely source to help with last-minute baby preparations: her employer.

A concierge provided by her company, Fifth Third Bancorp, helped the 25-year-old customer service representative reschedule her baby shower, locate photographers for pregnancy portraits and order birth announcements.

Companies have been adding new benefits for working parents in the past few years as they seek to attract and hang on to employees balancing family and work. Johnson & Johnson pays to ship mothers' breast milk home from business trips, and investment firm KKR & Co. allows employees to bring nannies along for work travel; tech company Gusto provides new parents meal-delivery services and housecleanings. To add to the growing list are Fifth Third's two maternity concierges, who have been on duty at the Cincinnati-based bank since January.

Fifth Third's concierges tend to the needs of expectant employees and those with infants, recommending strollers, ordering breast pumps and researching fitness options for new mothers seeking ways to get back in shape.

They even plan parties where parents reveal the gender of their unborn child to family and friends, sometimes by cutting into a cake with blue or pink crumb; a concierge arranged one mother-to-be to spread the news by releasing a balloon as opposed to cutting a cake.

Fifth Third's perk is intended to keep more women advancing at work during a critical turning point. Employees who have taken maternity leave in the previous 12 months leave the company at nearly twice the rate of all women at the firm, according to the bank. The bank's leave program is six weeks at either 100% or 60% pay, depending on how long the employee has worked there. Fifth Third says it plans to increase its leave program later this year.

Nearly 140 employees are taking part in the three-month-old concierge program, open to expectant mothers and those with infants under a year old. The bank said it is spending six figures on the workers, who are contracted via concierge company Best Upon Request and work full-time in Fifth Third's Cincinnati office.

Teresa Tanner, a Fifth Third executive, developed the program after hearing from expectant and new mothers in the bank's ranks who were overwhelmed by all they had to get done before a baby's arrival.

"We have to get more women in leadership positions in our company," Ms. Tanner said. Some 60% of Fifth Third's 18,000 employees are women, but that share drops to 23% for its executives and senior managers.

So far, Fifth Third employees are keeping concierge Jessica Hanson busy. She has scoured a local Target for items for a pregnant employee's hospital bag, planned a St. Patrick's-themed first birthday party -- which involved locating a shamrock headband from Etsy.com and ordering a pastel green cake from a local bakery -- and compiled a dossier of 10 different churches for an employee unsure where to have her baby baptized. Once, she even helped an indecisive worker select a baby name.

"We're like a wedding planner, but we're your baby planner," Ms. Hanson said.

The duo receives two to three inquiries a day from employees exploring the service for the first time; some mothers and moms-to-be already email them as many as 10 times a day, Ms. Hanson said. The most common requests: child-care advice and assistance.

Ms. Hanson and her partner also provide some emotional support and connection. She has heard from a woman overwhelmed by a surprise pregnancy and one who ended up with two sets of twins after undergoing infertility treatments. The concierges keep a list of counselor recommendations on hand for those suffering from postpartum depression.

The program is targeted to women, but the maternity concierges have received a few requests from fathers. They direct those to the company's main concierge program, which offers grocery shopping and other services for all employees.

Assistance for expecting and new parents may help new mothers stay on when they're at risk for "dropping out and then regretting it later," said Kenneth Matos, an executive at consultancy Life Meets Work. Mr. Matos says it's part of a broader trend among companies to lighten the burden of chores for both male and female employees, as firms try to stay lean while expanding work duties.

"That's the last thing you can kind of do to get more time out of [workers] before you just need to hire more people," he said.

American Express Co. also has a concierge program for parents navigating company benefits, and Stanford University's hospitals and health clinics offer emergency department physicians meal delivery, laundry and housecleaning services when they work extra shifts.

Ms. Smith, the customer-service representative, said that delegating tasks to Ms. Hanson allowed her to focus on work in the weeks leading up to the birth of her son, Zavier.

As she prepared to return to the office in late March after a six-week maternity leave, the concierge had helped her find day-care options. Now back at work, she's glad to have someone to fall back on. "In a way they're like my mom," she said.

Write to Rachel Feintzeig at rachel.feintzeig@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 04, 2017 05:44 ET (09:44 GMT)

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