Printed in St. Louis Post Dispatch STL Today at https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/column/article_77cbbe4e-9d3e-4e78-b03c-2784b194be7c.html
Opinion: Supporting paid family leave is a smart investment in Missouri businesses
By Maxine Clark
May 14, 2025
One of the most fulfilling parts of my career has been mentoring young female entrepreneurs. They often ask me how to maintain work-life balance. I wish I had good news. But the unvarnished truth is that while you can set boundaries, prioritize your mental health or even take vacations, as long as businesses in Missouri and across the country don’t offer paid family leave programs that allow workers to care for themselves and their families without giving up a paycheck, true work-life balance can never fully be achieved.
I founded and then ran the Build-a-Bear Workshop for 16 years, and from brick and mortar to the boardroom, I worked with thousands of families who welcomed new babies, said goodbye to aging parents, or experienced life-changing personal and family emergencies. For me, it was never negotiable that our employees should begiven the time and space to prioritize their lives outside of work. Life has a way of happening, and from day one, we offered paid family and medical leave — no questions asked — and even encouraged staff to bring their children in when school closed.
Offering family-friendly policies was the right thing to do for Build-a-Bear, but it was also just good business. Running a successful business is about productivity, and I’ve seen firsthand that if you want productive employees, you need happy, healthy, loyal people who are committed to and engaged with their jobs. And that means they can take care of themselves and their families, achieving a work-life balance with the paid time they need at home so they’ll then come back refreshed and ready to work. At Build-a-Bear, our employees always came back, and our business thrived.
That’s why I’m heartened that in November, nearly 1.7 million of my fellow Missourians voted to support Proposition A, which requires businesses to provide one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked. Although our state still doesn’t guarantee paid parental leave, this policy, which just went into effect, is a great start. But unfortunately, it’s already in danger. Despite overwhelming bipartisan vote support state senators have been working hard to overturn it. They have until May 16to do so.
Getting rid of family-friendly policies like Proposition A would be a terrible mistake, not just for Missouri families, but also for our businesses, economy and workforce. Women make up nearly half of the labor force in our state. Too often, parents, particularly mothers, are forced to choose between their families and their jobs. Yet, if Missouri women were able to participate in the workforce at the same rate as women who live in places that offer family leave, there would be 26,000 more workers and $829 million more wages earned across our state.
At Build-a-Bear, after just a few years of offering paid leave, things changed. There were fewer absences, lower turnover and health care costs, and ultimately more profit. In fact, a study found that having to replace employees can cost as much as150% of annual wages. According to a financial analysis of over 10,000 businesses, those that implemented paid leave experienced 4.6% more revenue and 6.8% more profit per full-time-equivalent employee. And for every dollar invested in the workforce, manufacturing and tech companies saw a respective $2.57 and $2.64return.
Family-friendly policies also protect our future workforce and our economy. When parents can take care of their families, their children thrive and are more likely to become productive, skilled workers themselves, who then contribute to a more resilient and globally competitive economy. Proposition A would also be good for taxpayers. When states have paid leave programs, they have fewer families relying on public assistance, resulting in lower costs for taxpayers.
Supporting paid family and sick leave is a smart investment, but also a humane one. We can’t claim to care about the future of our state, and certainly not our country, if we don’t support the families and communities who live here. Overturning Proposition A would be a giant step backwards in Missouri that would not only hurt our people, but also our businesses and economy. I hope that as we approach the May16 deadline to repeal this policy that our state senators listen to what Missourians want and need — a full life where they are supported at work and at home, regardless of the circumstances.
Clark is the CEO of the Clark-Fox Family Foundation in St. Louis, founder of the Build-a-Bear Workshop and chief inspirator of the Delmar DivINe.
