Win for gender equality: Zomato announces 26-weeks paid parental leave
Setting a precedent for gender equality, the restaurant search and food delivery service Zomato introduced paid parental leave for men and women for a period of 26 weeks (roughly six months). The new policy was announced by Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal on Monday, setting a new benchmark for paid paternity leaves in India. Here are more details about their new policy.
Zomato pushed the policy across 13 countries where they're present
In a blog post on Monday, Goyal announced that Zomato will now offer 26 weeks of paid parental leave to their employees across the 13 countries where they are present in, or will follow the government mandated policy, whichever is more. The founder specified that the parental leave is applicable to male employees as well and there won't be "even an iota of difference."
Policy extends to non-birthing parents as well
To ease the financial strain of a new child, Zomato will offer new parents an endowment of $1,000 (approx Rs. 70,000), per child. Any Zomato employee who has had a child in the last six months can be a beneficiary of the policy. Zomato also added that the policy applies in case of "non-birthing parents, and in cases of surrogacy, adoption, and same-sex partners."
Currently, maternity leave is 26 weeks; paternity leave only 2
Back in 2017, the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill, 2016 was passed which raised the period of paid maternity leaves for working women from 12-26 weeks for the first two children. On the contrary, paternity leave of only two weeks was available to fathers.
Currently, women struggle balancing workload at home, office
Goyal stated that the reason we see fewer women leaders, is because women who strive to balance healthy family lives and careers often end up "putting their careers on the back burner." "This results in a pressing lack of diversity across all levels of the organization," the founder added, acknowledging that most senior positions in the world are occupied by men.
Men occupy top positions because of unequal leave policy: Goyal
Goyal cited an unequal leave policy as one of the reasons for the skewed gender statistics in the higher-ups, which, he said, "needs to be solved proactively." "A myopic view of primary caregiving not only alienates one half of our workforce but also creates circumstances that lead to fewer female leaders within organizations, the community, and the nation," Goyal said.
'Encouraging both parents to assume equal responsibility a fair start'
Citing equal paid parental leave policies in Nordic countries, Goyal encouraged major organizations to follow suit. "It takes a village to raise a child," Goyal wrote, "While a village is ideal, a world where both parents are allowed, rather encouraged to assume equal responsibility is a fair start." He added, "We'll never have truly gender-neutral organizations unless we have gender-neutral communities and gender-neutral nations."
