Focus On Your DEI Goals When Responding To Abortion Restrictions
Using an equity lens to inform your abortion care travel benefits can improve employee retention
By Ellen Frank-Miller, PhD
The fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has come crashing down on American businesses and their employee health care benefits.
The timing could hardly be worse. It’s already difficult to find and retain workers, especially at essential lower-level and frontline positions – and research shows that these workers are likely to be the most severely affected by the court’s decision.
But with difficulty comes opportunity. Companies that stop, take a deep breath, and think about their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals can create policies that help them achieve employer-of-choice status.
Businesses pay for a huge chunk of American health services through employer-sponsored insurance policies. Many large companies have announced new travel benefits to help employees living in states that ban or restrict abortion care.
What’s the smart thing to do, the right approach with an eye on employee retention and DEI goals?
The answer is to view your actions through an equity lens and start building policy based on the needs of employees who will be most harmed by abortion restrictions. In other words, build from the bottom up, starting with the needs of the lower-wage portion of your workforce.
Here are five questions employers can use to apply a DEI lens when designing abortion care travel benefits:
Where are most of your lower-level workers located? Travel is expensive right now and your policy should reflect that. Consider how far employees will have to travel for abortion care. Will they need to drive (do they even have a car?), fly, or travel via other transportation?
How do employees’ wages match up against expected travel needs? Dive into your wage data to see how frontline workers’ earnings compare against the cost of expected travel needs. The less your lower-level workers are paid and the further from abortion care they are located, the more generous your benefit needs to be if you want to achieve your DEI goals.
Are frontline workers eligible for PTO? If your frontline workers don’t get paid time off (PTO) or have very little of it, now is the time to reconsider that policy. COVID-19 caused a rethink of paid sick leave benefits – restrictions on abortion care should, too.
What other reasonable costs would you cover for employees when paying for their travel? When employers pay for business travel, they generally cover lodging, meals, and transportation. Employees who must travel to receive abortion care need these things too – in addition to other needs, like child care (the majority of people seeking abortion care are already parents).
What about your workers who aren’t covered by your health insurance? If you have a long waiting period for eligibility, don’t offer coverage to lower-level workers, or have premiums that are too expensive for them to afford and you choose to limit your travel policy to covered employees, you are undermining your DEI goals.
By taking the time to craft abortion care travel policies that are rooted in achieving DEI goals, companies can have a real impact on the lives of their employees who are most harmed by abortion bans and restrictions – and improve their bottom lines through greater employee loyalty and reduced turnover.
About the author:
Ellen G. Frank-Miller, PhD (ellen@worcimpact.com), has spent her 30-year career collaborating with investors, employers, national advocates, and community-based organizations to help make frontline jobs better and more accessible to all people. An organizational scholar by training, Dr. Frank-Miller has 15 years of experience in HR consulting and excels at creating evidence-informed programs and policies. Prior to launching the Workforce & Organizational Research Center (WORC), she founded and led the Workforce Financial Stability Initiative at the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Frank-Miller has taught research methods at Washington University in St. Louis and at the University of Chicago, where she earned her Ph.D.
