Over the past couple of months, India Inc has been going all out to retain female talent by awarding them paid maternity leaves and various other maternity benefits. But now, Tata Sons has hopped onto the bandwagon to set a new benchmark in policies for women.
The company is rolling out the following benefits primarily for women employees and expecting fathers:
- For early childhood care, after completing the seven-month maternity leave, women can avail 18 months of half-pay half working day post-maternity leave
- Flexibility to choose working hours
- Apart from the maternity and early childhood care leaves, women employees can now work two days a week from home
- Secure performance ratings during the maternity leave, which means that performance rating during maternity leave and flexible work will be based on the average of the previous two years’ ratings or ratings for the ongoing year, whichever is higher. Maternity leave, flexible work, work from home — time spent on all three will be considered as continuous work/service, and therefore, promotions will not be impacted.
- On completion of five years at work, women can avail a one-year leave at half pay if they are care-givers at home. This is to enable them to take care of elders or children in the house, and can be taken for a maximum six times for a minimum of two months.
- During this period, the compensation will be 50 percent of their last drawn CTC
- The company will also give six-months as adoption leave, six month surrogacy leave, and 15 days as paternity leave
Infographic credit: ET Now
Currently, this policy has only been rolled out by Tata Sons and will most likely be taken up by their sister concerns at the Tata Group.
When do these policies begin?
The policy is up for grabs for women employees from this month onwards. This means that starting this month, woman employees at Tata Sons are eligible to avail of the seven-month maternity leave with full pay. The leave can also be taken two months prior to child birth.
Continue reading to know how these women policies were rolled out.
Why were they started?
Through these policies, Tata Sons are taking care of interventions at various life stages of women, which include child birth, early childhood care, flexible working hours, care for elderly and children. This is being done as part of Tata LEAD – under the Group Diversity and Inclusion initiative that was launched in March 2014, by chairman Cyrus P Mistry.
“Our intent is to show that we care through a deep organisational commitment towards our woman employees. Maternity, for example, has been a key focus area. By offering seven months leave followed by postmaternity support of 18 months, we are providing a viable option to mothers to be at home during the critical early childhood,” NS Rajan, the group chief human resources officer at Tata Sons was quoted as saying by ET Now.
“Working women today perform multiple roles much beyond their work at office. Looking after home, attending to children and elders is a cherished role. Our approach, be it special leave and flexible alternatives, are aimed at recognising these important roles women play in their families and stand by our woman employees wherever needed,” Rajan told ET Now.
Maternity leave in the private sector
Earlier this year, India Inc had chosen to be ahead of the government and declared a 26-week maternity leave policy for their employees even before the labour ministry made amends to the Maternity Benefit Act.
While Nestle India and Microsoft had declared this policy in the first week of February, the new companies to join the list were KPMG, Deloitte, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Ersnt & Young.
In fact, as per a new government proposal, woman employees who are surrogate and commissioning mothers would also get six months maternity leave.
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