#BetterLeadership

Google calls its HR department People Operations, though most people in the firm shorten it to POPS.The group is headed by Laszlo Bock, a trim, soft-spoken 40-year-old who came to Google six years ago.

Bock says that when POPS looked into Google’s woman problem, it found it was really a new mother problem: Women who had recently given birth were leaving at twice Google’s average departure rate.

At the time, Google offered an industry-standard maternity leave plan. After a woman gave birth, she got 12 weeks of paid time off. For all other new parents in its California offices, but not for its workers outside the state, the company offered seven paid weeks of leave.