Online restaurant guide and food ordering firm Zomato on June 3, 2019, has announced 26-week parental leave for all its employees, both men and women.
As per its new paternal leave policy, the new parents will also be given an endowment of $1,000 (Rs 69,262) per child, as they welcome their new baby to the world, Zomato Founder and Chief Executive Officer Deepinder Goyal said in a blog post.
In the blog post, Mr. Goyal said Zomato believed people produce their best work when their personal and professional goals meaningfully intersect and align.
After the passage of the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017, paid maternity leave available to women was increased from 12 weeks to 26 weeks across organisations in India.
Presently, there is no such rule for paternity leave in the country. No company in India has a similar parental leave policy for men and women.
"According to me, a lot of that imbalance at the top stems from an unequal leave policy for men and women when they welcome their children to this world," added Mr. Goyal.
As per the new policy, for women at Zomato across the globe (the company has in 13 countries), they will offer 26 weeks paid leave or will follow the government mandated policy, whichever is more. The exact same benefits will be offered to the men at the workplace
The policy also applies to non-birthing parents, and in cases of surrogacy, adoption, and same-sex partners.
These policy changes are applicable to even those employees who have had a child within the last six months.
Talking about the institutionalization of paid parental leave by the governments across the world, Mr Goyal said: that will be the right thing to do for organisations as well as individuals.
In fact, its time all major organisations took a step towards this much needed way of life, he added.
