Microsoft to business partners: If you want to work with us, offer paid family leave

Technology giants in the United States offer some of the country’s most generous employee benefits, but the workers who mow the lawns or serve lunch in the company cafeteria — jobs that are often staffed by outside firms — tend to get far smaller packages.

Microsoft announced a new policy Thursday that it hopes will shrink that gap, pledging it will ink contracts only with service providers who give their employees 12 weeks of paid family leave.