Yahoo's Mayer has 'opportunity' to affect work-life balance

For Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, there will not only be a baby watch, but also a maternity leave watch.

Still one of the few female CEOs at a major tech company, Mayer had been heralded as a glass-ceiling breaker when she became Yahoo CEO in July 2012 while five months pregnant.

But her return to the office in October after taking only two weeks off for maternity leave following the Sept. 30, 2012, birth of son Macallister brought mixed reactions. She earned recognition for a new mom’s ability to quickly manage work and home life, but Mayer also was targeted with criticism about what her quick return could mean for other working moms, most without her means.

Now, there's anticipation of how Mayer will handle her return after the expected December arrival of identical twin daughters, which she announced early Tuesday on Tumblr. "I plan to approach the pregnancy and delivery as I did with my son three years ago, taking limited time away and working throughout," she said in the post.

But some working moms may hope that Mayer does decide to spend a bit more time at home before returning to the office. "I would bet she will, unless there's a need to prove herself and that's sad if that's the case," said Traci Bild, consultant and author of Get Your Girl Back: Revisit What's Possible for Your Life in an interview with USA TODAY.

A mother of two and CEO of consulting firm Bild & Co., Bild says that Mayer has "a really huge opportunity, because of who she is, to bring change and open the conversation ... for women and men, about a better work-life blend."

Mayer's pregnancy has no impact on Yahoo's share price perspective, says Needham & Co. analyst Laura Martin. In an email exchange, she called Mayer a "great role model for young girls in America to see a high-profile CEO having kids and managing to do it all."

Yahoo shares fared better than the S&P 500 on Tuesday, down 1.95% to $31.61.

Already, Mayer has helped rebuild some opinions about how concerned she is about employees' work-life balance. That came after she had a nursery built next to her office so she could see her son while working and she scrapped Yahoo's telecommuting policy.

But then in April, she improved Yahoo’s maternity leave policy to place it among the nation’s finest. Moms get 16 weeks of paid leave with benefits for each new child born via childbirth — doubling the company’s previous allowance of time off. Fathers get up to eight weeks.

Both parents receive eight weeks of paid leave for new children via adoption, foster child placement or surrogacy. Parents also get $500 for expenses such as house cleaning, groceries and babysitting.

This may fall short of Netflix’s recent move to unlimited paid leave for both parents within the year of a child’s birth or adoption. But it is nearly that of Google — 18 weeks for primary caregivers, regardless of gender — and Microsoft’s 12-week leave policy (birth mothers can earn an additional eight weeks of full paid maternity disability leave).

The improvements were likely a result of Mayer's first pregnancy, Bild said. "My thought is she got to walk in the shoes of those employees, both men and women, to see what it was like to be a parent and probably, in reflection, realized two weeks was not near enough. The 16 weeks is incredibly generous."

But the repercussions for other women are clear if Mayer doesn't use more than two weeks of maternity leave, Babson College (Mass.) dean of executive education Elaine Eisenman told Bloomberg. “That gives a clear message to her employees that only work matters,” she said. Others will likely interpret that as “work comes before being a mom, that’s a horrible message,” Eisenman said.

Women need to realistically consider, and talk about, the work-life balance before they pay too big of a price for workplace advancement, Bild suggests in a column posted on The Huffington Post just a few hours before Mayer's announcement. "With women making strides in workplace advancement and 40% of us the family breadwinner," she wrote, "it seems we've lost sight of what matters most — the pursuit of happiness."

In the months ahead, Mayer may play a major role in the advancement — or regression — of that pursuit.

Follow USA TODAY reporter Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider