As society continues to change, the work force becomesincreasingly diverse, and new legislation affects theemployer-employee relationship, companies must work hard toattract and retain talented employees.

Related: What's in your bag ofbenefits?

To stay competitive, many employers have begun to offer a widerrange of benefits, including some that are less conventional thanin years past.

U.S. companies may be more likely to offer these cutting-edgebenefits than European, South American, or Asian companies becausethere is little federal legislation in the U.S. with regard togovernment-paid health care or paid parental leave.

Related: Global employees sound off on employers,benefits and pay

This provides another opportunity for U.S. companies to competefor talent by offering added benefits, including, among others,company-provided fitness bands or activity trackers,company-organized fitness competitions, and company-providedstudent loan repayment.

Related: The top industries for employee benefitsatisfaction

Let's look at some of these new, cutting-edge benefits, such asegg-freezing, adoption, and surrogacy as well as the underlyingchallenges that U.S.-based multinational companies face whenrolling out these programs globally.

Implanted frozen eggs can be used in the sophisticatedprocess known as in vitro fertilization. (Photo: AP)

Freezing Eggs

In recent years, many U.S. companies have begun offeringbenefits for reproductive-related treatments, such as infertilitytreatments. Apple and Facebook, among other employers, for example,offer financial assistance for egg-freezing, which provides womenwith the opportunity to delay child-bearing.

Related: 1 in 4 benefits plans offers fertilitytreatments, study says

Employers may offer this benefit to stay competitive in theworkplace, but it also may incentivize women to focus on theircareers at a time when they may otherwise take leave to serve asthe primary caregiver for newborns and young children.

Egg-freezing is very expensive. The cost of the procedure isbetween $9,000 and $20,000 per cycle, and additional, related drugcosts range from $2,000 to $4,000 per cycle. In vitro fertilization(IVF) later implants the frozen eggs and costs approximately$13,000.

In addition, a woman may require several cycles of IVF toincrease the likelihood of becoming pregnant. Without financialsupport, many women cannot afford the procedure.

Health insurance companies often only provide coverage forfreezing eggs due to medical necessity, such as chemotherapy, andnot if a woman undergoes the procedure for “social” reasons or as a“lifestyle preference.”

In the United States, Connecticut House Bill No. 5230, forexample, offers health insurance coverage for fertilitypreservation for insureds diagnosed with cancer, but no suchcoverage is provided if a woman chooses to reproduce later in lifewithout a medical problem.

Similarly, some employers consider freezing eggs a “lifestylechoice” or a “luxury” that is not medically necessary health carebecause it does not cure or correct the cause of infertility.

Such employers compare egg-freezing to elective cosmetic surgeryand consequently do not offer the benefit. (Interestingly,egg-freezing started as a medical treatment for cancer patients andhas evolved into an elective or “enhancement” procedure. Similarly,cosmetic surgery originally was developed to treat wounded soldiersand is now viewed as an elective procedure.)

This argument, however, may be challenged, as egg-freezing is avalued medical procedure that allows women to treat infertility aswell as provides women with the choice to prevent and control thetiming of pregnancies.

But if freezing eggs is considered an individual choice andemployers offer egg-freezing benefits, employers must be aware thatoffering such benefits may lead to some issues and concerns.

One such problem is that only a small number of employees likelywill take advantage of this non-traditional benefit, as no maleemployees are able to use it, not all women are within the viableage range, and some women will not opt into the program.

In addition, male employees could complain if not offered asimilar benefit, such as sperm freezing, even if that process isnot truly an equivalent procedure because, for example, female ageis a more significant fertility factor than male age.

As such, offering egg-freezing could open the door for employeesto request coverage for other elective procedures. To potentiallyaddress this problem, employers could allow male employees to usethe egg-freezing benefit on behalf of their spouse who is eitherunemployed or working for an employer that does not offer thebenefit.

Another issue is whether offering egg-freezing creates impliedpressure on women to delay motherhood to succeed in their careers.Women may worry that opting out of the program demonstrates eitherless commitment to the employer or the intention to start a familysoon and may be concerned about how this could impactdecision-making when it comes to work assignments, promotionalopportunities, or salary considerations.

To address this concern, the company’s employee handbook shouldstate very clearly that the option to freeze eggs is an entirelyoptional benefit intended to empower women and to provide anotherchoice, and that participation (or lack of participation) in theprogram will be kept confidential to the greatest extentpracticable.

The United Kingdom, for example, has partially addressed thisproblem by offering shared parental leave with pay to supportworking parents. By offering to pay for egg-freezing but not forsimilar services, such as sperm freezing to male employees, a UKemployer arguably may violate the sex discrimination provisions ofthe Equality Act of 2010. (Note that the Equality Act of 2010creates a risk if employers do not offer exactly equal benefits tomen and women. If the employer still chooses to offer such abenefit, the employer must communicate that it supports parents ofboth sexes in the family-work balance.)

Some U.K. companies nevertheless offer egg-freezing benefits toprovide female employees with more freedom and the option to delayparenthood.

Similarly, in the United States, this benefit also could presentpotential sex discrimination exposure under Title VII (and relatedstate and local law). Because Title VII bars discriminatoryemployment practices with respect to an employee’s sex, it ispossible that litigation addressing sex discrimination on the basisof reproductive benefits may arise.

Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton (aka Mario Lavanderia)started his family in 2013 when son Mario was born via surrogate.(Photo: AP)

Surrogacy

Surrogacy is another cutting-edge benefit that some U.S.companies offer employees. In the United States, surrogacy is avery expensive process, a process that costs generally over$100,000. The breakdown of the cost is approximately as follows:$20,000-$30,000 to the surrogate; $5,000-$10,000 to the egg donor;$30,000 to the fertility clinic; $20,000 to the surrogacy agency;and $10,000 to the lawyers.

To offset some of these costs, Columbia University, for example,offers a Surrogacy Assistance Program that provides benefits toemployees who use a surrogate to assist in carrying and givingbirth to a child.

Laws on surrogacy vary both within the United States andglobally, and employers should be aware of these differences whendrafting surrogacy-related benefit programs.

Offering surrogacy benefits can be challenging, as surrogacy islargely unregulated. Because the United States has no uniformnational policy with regard to surrogacy coverage, and maternitycoverage for surrogates can range between states and healthinsurance policies, employers must be aware of potentialconflicts.

In Wisconsin, for example, insurance companies transacting inthe state cannot deny routine pregnancy services to surrogatemothers based solely on how they become pregnant. Furthermore, insome states, such as California and Rhode Island, surrogacy ispermitted and pre-birth orders will be granted. A pre-birth orderpermits the legal documents assigning parentage to be signed by theseventh month of pregnancy.

Other states that permit surrogacy, however, only provide for apost-birth parentage order, and intended parents usually go tocourt within three to five days after the birth of the child toreceive final legal parentage. Some states have no specificsurrogacy law, while others, such as New York, prohibit compensatedsurrogacy contracts.

Internationally, commercial surrogacy is legal in severalcountries, including Georgia, Israel, Mexico, Russia, andUkraine.

But some countries restrict access to legal commercialsurrogacy. Israel, for example, bars homosexual individuals’ accessto commercial surrogacy. Furthermore, commercial surrogacy isillegal in many countries, including Australia, Brazil, France,Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Spain,Switzerland, the UK, and, more recently, Nepal and Thailand.

In addition, India’s government recently proposed the SurrogacyBill 2016 which, if passed, would ban all commercial surrogacy inthe country, allowing only “altruistic surrogacy,” i.e. onlyinfertile Indian couples who have been married for at least fiveyears can seek a surrogate, who must be a close relative (e.g., asister, sister-in-law, or daughter-in-law).

Due to the varying nature of surrogacy laws around the globe,employers that include a benefit providing for the use of surrogacyshould confirm state and country laws and develop a policy thatclearly addresses surrogacy coverage.

Gregg Pitts and his husband were delighted when they wereable to adopt a son. (Photo: AP)

Adoption

In the United States, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)provides new parents with leave to care for a newborn biologicalson or daughter as well as an adopted child.

Related: Adoption benefits on therise

Some states, including Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts,Minnesota, and Washington, D.C., among others, also have their own“mini-FMLA” laws that may provide similar or greater coverage thanfederal FMLA, and may cover employees who may not otherwise beeligible for federal FMLA.

In addition, beginning in January 2018, New York will joinseveral states, including California, New Jersey, and Rhode Island,by instituting paid family leave benefits for eligible employeeswhich will cover, among other things, leave to care for an adoptedchild.

In addition to FMLA coverage, employers are now more likely tooffer not only adoption expense benefits to cover adoption costs,but also adoption leave. For example, Netflix provides unlimitedpaid parental leave during the first year after the birth oradoption of a child.

Similarly, Adobe, Bank of America, Google, Facebook, andMicrosoft offer generous leave benefits to both new biological andadoptive parents. Furthermore, some states, such as Colorado andMaryland, may require that employers offer equivalent leave forboth adoption and childbirth.

Outside the United States, many countries have well-developedadoption laws. For example, as of July 1, 2016, in Singapore, themother of an adopted child is entitled to government-paid adoptionleave, subject to some eligibility restrictions, if the adoptedchild is under the age of 12 months at the time of the formalintent to adopt.

Under government-paid adoption leave, a mother of an adoptedchild is entitled to four weeks of paid leave, capped at $10,000.The mother’s employer is reimbursed for the amount paid.

This new legislation in Singapore reflects the notion thatadoption is a cheaper and more sustainable alternative to IVF. Manyscholars have opined that adoption builds acceptance of differentraces, cultures, religions, and can bring a child from a deprivedbackground into a home. Singapore politicians argued that adoptionprovides genetic diversity and may spare infertile couples fromemotional disappointment as well as time and money spent on afailed—or potentially multiple failed—IVF treatments.

Employers must be aware that adoption leave outside the UnitedStates also may be impacted by laws that require similarly situatedemployees to be treated equally. In France, for example, everyleave is supposed to be treated the same, i.e. all leave receivesequal time and benefits, but, practically speaking, parental leavegenerally is longer.

Despite the obvious discrepancy here, the law does not appear tohave been challenged as of yet. Multinational companies also shouldnote that countries have varying anti-discrimination legislation,some of which may provide for potential claims based upon treatingdifferent types of leave policies differently.

Accordingly, employers may wish to consider includingcountry-specific provisions to address such issues.

In developing new cutting-edge benefits policies to attracttalent, employers must be aware that laws differ not only withinthe U.S., but across countries. (Photo: iStock)

New kinds of benefits require careful consideration

In sum, new benefits continue to emerge in the workforce asscience, technology, and society change.

While developing new cutting-edge benefits policies to attracttalent and in the process allow women to take advantage ofreproductive technologies to enable conception later in life and toprovide would-be parents with innovative ways to start a family,including through surrogacy and adoption, employers must be awarethat laws differ not only within the United States, but also acrosscountries.

Companies also should understand that their benefits policiesmay have unintended consequences, as a generous benefit to someemployees may be viewed as implicit pressure to prioritize a careerover starting a family or can raise concerns about the potentialfor discrimination claims.

As such, to ensure good morale in the workplace, to retainproductive employees, and to stay competitive in the evolvingworkplace, global companies must maintain compliance with thesedeveloping and varying international laws that addressegg-freezing, adoption, and surrogacy, among other family-planningconsiderations and cutting-edge benefits.