Zomato offers 26 weeks paid paternal leave
Culturally, women are expected to stay at home once they give birth, to take care of their baby. This has led to a huge gender gap in the corporate sector.
While rising costs of living, nuclear families and modernised perspectives, are seeing more women want to continue their careers, often having a baby forces them to be at home longer than they are allowed as per employment contracts. Moreover, they are left to care for the baby alone as men do not get paternal leaves.
Zomato, an Indian startup that has grown to expand internationally, is bringing about a change to tackle this issue. It now offers 26 weeks of paid leave to its employees across the globe, both new fathers and mothers.
"For women across the globe, we will be offering 26 weeks paid leave, or will follow the government mandated policy, whichever is more. We will be offering exactly the same benefits to men as well. There won't be even an iota of difference in parental leave policy for men and women at Zomato going forward."Deepinder Goyal, Founder of Zomato
The new leave policy will also apply to surrogate as well as adoptive parents, marking a positive change in the age old ways of working.
In addition, it will also provide parents with $1,000 per child. However, these benefits are not extended to its 180,000 delivery drives, most of whom are in India.
"I believe that young parents should be able to make a choice of how to care for their children. And that a myopic view of primary care-giving not only alienates one half of our workforce, but also creates circumstances that lead to fewer female leaders within organisations, the community and the nation,"Deepinder Goyal, Founder of Zomato
India still has a long way to go to reduce gender gaps in the workforce and provide equal benefits. Giving women equal pay is still not practiced by most companies. However, change takes time and it is an absolute delight to see an Indian startup, as compared to an established corporate group, lead this change to give fathers time off to care for their wives and newborn babies.
