Following the lead of other global firms, Twitter is now offering to cover the costs of shipping breast milk for its female employees.
In the ultra-competitive tech sector, offering perks to improve diversity is the norm.
Twitter’s latest perk, which may seem unorthodox to some, is actually becoming more popular at US tech firms: paying for mothers on business trips to ship their breast milk home.
According to Fortune magazine, the program was launched in July, and covers the cost of women to FedEx milk home in temperature-controlled packaging.
The idea reportedly came from Twitter’s ‘Mommy Mentor’ program, which provides peer mentorship to help women get back to work during pregnancy or after having a child.
“One of the Mommy Mentors who was traveling for work said this would be an awesome program and we ran with it,” Janet Van Huysse, Twitter’s VP of diversity and inclusion, told NBC News.
The program is similar to schemes launched earlier this year by IBM and Accenture.
Last year, Apple and Facebook hit headlines by announcing that they would offer to pay for the freezing of their female employees' eggs.
Fortune reported that nine women at Twitter signed up for the milk shipping program when the company unveiled it at a global sales conference in July.
“It's too early to tell [how many more have signed up since],” Van Huysse said. “However, the goal behind launching this program wasn't about scope or reach — it's about positive impact for the employees that can and will participate in it.”
