How Muck Rack manages employee leave across 33 states

Muck Rack is the industry-changing Public Relations Management (PRM) platform supporting brands, agencies, and media professionals alike.

With Muck Rack, companies can manage all of their public relations in one central hub. Trusted by major brands like Spotify, Google, Unicef, Reddit, Duolingo, BBC, and Visa, Muck Rack has earned a reputation for being both effective and easy to use.

The platform lets businesses connect with journalists, review press mentions in real time, personalize pitches, track results, and create custom reports, making it easier to tell their stories on their terms.

Powering Muck Rack’s PR software is a fully distributed team of driven, passionate professionals. To support them, Muck Rack uses Sparrow for employee leave management.

Providing holistic employee care, no matter where employees live

The same driving force behind Muck Rack’s product—the value of meaningful relationships—is also at the core of the company’s culture. Muck Rack has worked hard to cultivate an inclusive workplace environment, one that values collaboration and diverse perspectives.

“We’re very focused on employee care,” said Molly Dircksen, Senior Director of Talent Management at Muck Rack. Central to Muck Rack’s business ethos is a permanent remote work model, with employees scattered across the United States and eight other countries.

“We’re a fully remote company, and we’ve tailored our benefits package around that,” Dircksen explained.

In addition to providing geo-neutral pay—which entitles employees to equitable compensation regardless of where they’re located—Muck Rack also gives employees 20 paid vacation days and seven paid sick days.

“We also have 13 paid holidays, three of which employees can swap,” she added. “So if the holiday doesn’t resonate with someone or they celebrate something different, they can swap that holiday out and observe on the day that makes the most sense for them.”

Other employee benefits include an annual company 401(k) contribution, a generous home office stipend, monthly phone and internet reimbursement, and comprehensive medical, dental, vision, and life insurance.

The company also provides a slew of benefits and perks designed to support employees physically, emotionally, mentally, and professionally. Think: a quarterly wellness stipend, free Headspace subscription, free learning and development courses, $50 of “Muck Meal” money every two weeks for team bonding activities, and reimbursements for TSA Precheck and Global Entry costs.

“We aim to elevate our benefits every year,” Dircksen said. “We recently moved off of a PEO, which allows us to handle our benefits in-house and make sure we’re providing equitable benefits for employees in every single state.”

That includes employee leave. Muck Rack offers up to 16 weeks of paid parental leave for employees who’ve been with the company at least six months. “We want to make sure people are getting the care and time off they need to focus on their health,” said Dircksen.

To guide employees through the leave process and manage the administrative load, Muck Rack relies on Sparrow.

The challenge: Managing leaves manually for employees in 33 states

Before Muck Rack partnered with Sparrow in 2023, the company managed employee leaves internally using a spreadsheet system.

“It was a partnership between the Talent Management and Finance teams to make sure we were tracking leaves correctly and providing the right numbers to process payroll accurately,” Dircksen said. “But it was chaotic—we ran around with our heads on fire.”

With employees in 33 different states, Muck Rack’s Talent Management team shouldered the burden of researching different state leave laws, reviewing individual state filing processes, and applying for benefits.

“We were running ourselves ragged trying to figure out how to apply for everything—and I’m sure we missed stuff along the way,” said Dircksen.

“We spent so much time trying to find out what each state could specifically offer, then figuring out what we needed to pay to top our employees up,” said Dircksen. “It was basically a full-time job trying to do everything compliantly and help our employees get all the benefits they could while maximizing their time off.”

The sheer volume of work proved taxing. On top of managing paperwork and compliance, Muck Rack’s Talent Management team also struggled to streamline communication with employees during the leave process.

“We spent a lot of time talking to our employees, and following up or nudging them when they were dealing with a new baby or a post-op recovery,” said Dircksen.

“That part didn’t sit well with us. We don’t want to bother employees while they’re taking time off, but we also want to make sure they’re getting paid,” she explained. “So it was an endless cycle of pain for both sides.”

When Muck Rack’s headcount started to increase more rapidly, the company knew it was time for a change. “Leave became unmanageable,” Dircksen said.

“We were looking at all of our internal systems and seeing what we could bring in-house. After bringing payroll and benefits in-house, we knew we wouldn’t be able to manage leaves on top of that,” she explained. “So we shopped around, and that’s when we found Sparrow.”

The solution: Outsourcing leave management to Sparrow

She and her team also appreciated Sparrow’s willingness to file forms and apply for benefits on their employees’ behalf. “It was hard for us to tell employees which websites to visit, and which forms to download and when to submit them,” Dircksen explained. “The option to have Sparrow do all of that for our employees was another big reason we chose to work with them.”

In addition to filling out and filing paperwork for Muck Rack employees, Sparrow also liaises with insurance providers, follows up with state agency representatives, and explains what payouts employees can expect and when.

Sparrow’s one-on-one employee support means there’s minimal back and forth between Muck Rack employees and People Ops, Dircksen said. “When we send that hand-off email connecting an employee with Sparrow, we know nothing is going to be overlooked.”

That includes pay. “We’re also not having to fix pay retroactively anymore,” she added, “because employees are getting the check amount they expected.”

With Sparrow on their side, the People Ops team’s workload has decreased dramatically. “I started this role a year and a half ago when we had even fewer employees, and leave management still took a long time,” Dircksen said. “I can’t imagine doing it now with our headcount growth and being off of a PEO. It would be a full-time position without Sparrow.”

Now, Muck Rack’s Talent Management Team doesn’t have to worry about navigating state leave laws, completing paperwork, or calculating payroll. Sparrow handles every aspect of leave administration.

“Payroll is so much easier now,” Dircksen added. “It’s a two-second call where we look at the Sparrow dashboard and see which amounts to plug in. It’s very clear what we need to pay and what that pay goes toward.”

Compliance is another tedious task off of Muck Rack’s to-do list. “We don’t have to worry about new laws popping up in the middle of managing a leave and disrupting our process, or fielding questions from employees that we don’t know the answers to—we just know Sparrow will take care of it,” said Dircksen.

The trust and confidence Dircksen and her team have in Sparrow is invaluable. “If something confusing ever comes up, Sparrow takes the time to explain it to us so we understand,” she said.

What’s more, Sparrow works through issues immediately. “Whenever you’re working with a new vendor, there are inevitably going to be things that don’t go perfectly,” Dircksen said. “When we hit a snag with one of our leaves, Sparrow got on a call with us right away and helped us come to a resolution. It gave me confidence that we were partnered with a like minded company that shared our same values about customer devotion.”

The result: More time for employee development and care

Using Sparrow for full-service leave administration has transformed Muck Rack’s leave process from both an administrative and employee experience standpoint.

Dircksen said she and her team don’t have as much reactive work since partnering with Sparrow. “I’m able to be more proactive in the day to day, and even get certain initiatives done early,” she explained.

“For example, we just finished our prep for Q3 performance reviews and it’s still Q1. Previously, we’d be doing that two days before the deadline because we just wouldn’t have the time to get ahead.”

Muck Rack’s time savings with Sparrow have also allowed them to tackle more big-picture projects. “We spent a lot of last year implementing a new tech stack and new tools to help us be more efficient and effective,” said Dircksen.

“That freed up our talent team to work on more impactful things like learning and development resources, trainings for managers, and other programs that will help us upskill and uplevel our team rather than dealing with so much administrative stuff,” she explained.

Sparrow takes the stress out of employee leave management—for everyone involved. Want to learn more? Explore our offerings or book a demo today.