The Mummy Returns? – Our views on the Maternity Benefits Act in India
With Maternity Leave at 26 weeks, the option to work from home and creche facilities at the office premises, these new provisions for women employees are definitely encouraging and much needed in the Corporate sector. Given the changing context in Indian homes, joint families are no more the norm and dual incomes are becoming vital to support households. While some companies do offer an array of support to new mums, most corporates have stringent rules. In Fact, earlier, most women were obliged to quit their jobs and stay home to care for their children, thereby not just losing income for themselves and their families but also losing their self-confidence. The new rule, however, can change that and let new mothers be with their new-borns full time for those precious few weeks longer.
How will this impact an individual
Obviously, at first glance, this is a great boon to young parents. The corporate world, finally, acknowledges that family life is a necessary part of the society. From myriad other perspectives: nursing mothers will get to actually breastfeed for the recommended duration rather than either go through the physical pain and indignity of expressing breast milk for the infant in their absence.
Additionally, they don’t have to go through the mental discomfort of knowing that you are not doing the best for your child if you put it on formula milk powder at the tender age of three months. It will also give a chance for the hormone levels to settle down before going back to the workspace, emotions are not so raw, guilt is manageable.
More importantly, it will also be a confidence booster to women as they no longer have to compromise on their careers or sacrifice a few years just because they are going to have a baby.
The potential effect of extended maternity leave
Of course, with this extended maternity benefit, there is now an argument about loss of productivity in the workplace. The solution could probably be companies starting to look at temp staffing models more closely.
The biggest question that comes to mind is that, will corporates start looking for ways to sidestep their new diversity policies and slow down in hiring young women in the workplace? If that is the case, we will certainly be seeing a surge of training programs for recruiters to help ask probing questions to avoid this bias.
How will this impact business
OMG! More time off?? How the heck will we get any work done around here if everyone takes half the year off to have babies?! What about continuity of projects and hey, we’re paying people who procreate? Our responsibility to society? What about our responsibility to population control??
We actually have come across people at senior management and CXO levels who say in sotto voce “..er, why don’t we just not hire women, please?”
So what happens if we don’t hire women or if we only hire women with grown and earning progeny or women who have had a hysterectomy? Prerequisites for employment! Let them go have babies in any other company, not on my time!
Do we hear you say, that’s ridiculous? Yes, it IS ridiculous. What will happen to organizational life without the balance of genders and the different perspectives that are brought to the table (and the Table!) by people of different genders and backgrounds? It will become a Nazi like space with no room for other ideas and ideologies. This is not because it has no women, but because you are confining thoughts, freedom and basic rights of people.
Sure, there are downsides: financial outflow, yes. But have the corporate thought about the financial advantages of inclusion and positive energies at work? Project timeline and delivery hiccups, absolutely? However, are they willing to compromise on creativity and quality? Women have been said to have an uncanny ability to focus and drive results in a short period of time and at the end of the day the results are more important than time spent in the office. In fact, mothers can be more productive in their own space and over time they will tend to have more loyalty towards the company.
We are not saying, women bring this to the workspace and men don’t. We are just putting the perspective out there that without the inclusion and without thought for the long term good of our species and society, growth gets stifled. This not only stands good in the corporate world, but it will spill over and have a ripple effect on every aspect of our lives right from infancy and school experiences to shaping society’s attitude toward lynching mobs and an equitable world.
So what are we saying organizations should do to try and strike this ‘world view’ balance?
- It is certainly a good idea to plan your budgets properly. Don’t end up resenting people who have babies because you think they are slowing down your business while they have a life. When people and manpower budgets are drawn up, do take into account not only this one aspect of maternity benefit to women, but also the other ‘hidden’ costs of employment that we rarely talk about: PF, ESI, Bonus, Gratuity…these are all must-dos in the Indian world of employment. Maternity benefit is just another must-do and one that impacts not only new mothers, but the next generation of human beings!
- Educate managers to view employees equitably and encourage them to remove the gender bias while hiring
- Ensure top management is sending the message of ‘big picture’ and ‘world-view’ down the line consistently. They have to walk the talk and be seen to hold this view. Else there will be no conviction and all your education and diversity awareness building will be in vain.
- Company policies have to support the perspective being mooted by senior management.
- Project plans will have to be made realistically with real-life situations accounted for.
- Manpower budgets will have to take possible maternity time into account just as we take annual earned leave into account as a reality of employing human beings.
While this move is extremely beneficial for mothers, we wonder when such reforms will be brought in for fathers? In fact, there’s another whole debate we can have around the role of fathers with infants and what the corporate world is doing to support them.
Currently, a new father gets 5 to 10 days of paternity leave in some organizations. Private companies in India are not obligated to give any paternity leave. There are companies such as Google India and ThoughtWorks India that give up to four weeks of paternity leave and Facebook gives four months of paternity leave. Will other companies follow suit, we wonder?
The Mummy Returns? – Our views on the Maternity Benefits Act in India
With Maternity Leave at 26 weeks, the option to work from home and creche facilities at the office premises, these new provisions for women employees are definitely encouraging and much needed in the Corporate sector. Given the changing context in Indian homes, joint families are no more the norm and dual incomes are becoming vital to support households. While some companies do offer an array of support to new mums, most corporates have stringent rules. In Fact, earlier, most women were obliged to quit their jobs and stay home to care for their children, thereby not just losing income for themselves and their families but also losing their self-confidence. The new rule, however, can change that and let new mothers be with their new-borns full time for those precious few weeks longer.
How will this impact an individual
Obviously, at first glance, this is a great boon to young parents. The corporate world, finally, acknowledges that family life is a necessary part of the society. From myriad other perspectives: nursing mothers will get to actually breastfeed for the recommended duration rather than either go through the physical pain and indignity of expressing breast milk for the infant in their absence.
Additionally, they don’t have to go through the mental discomfort of knowing that you are not doing the best for your child if you put it on formula milk powder at the tender age of three months. It will also give a chance for the hormone levels to settle down before going back to the workspace, emotions are not so raw, guilt is manageable.
More importantly, it will also be a confidence booster to women as they no longer have to compromise on their careers or sacrifice a few years just because they are going to have a baby.
The potential effect of extended maternity leave
Of course, with this extended maternity benefit, there is now an argument about loss of productivity in the workplace. The solution could probably be companies starting to look at temp staffing models more closely.
The biggest question that comes to mind is that, will corporates start looking for ways to sidestep their new diversity policies and slow down in hiring young women in the workplace? If that is the case, we will certainly be seeing a surge of training programs for recruiters to help ask probing questions to avoid this bias.
How will this impact business
OMG! More time off?? How the heck will we get any work done around here if everyone takes half the year off to have babies?! What about continuity of projects and hey, we’re paying people who procreate? Our responsibility to society? What about our responsibility to population control??
We actually have come across people at senior management and CXO levels who say in sotto voce “..er, why don’t we just not hire women, please?”
So what happens if we don’t hire women or if we only hire women with grown and earning progeny or women who have had a hysterectomy? Prerequisites for employment! Let them go have babies in any other company, not on my time!
Do we hear you say, that’s ridiculous? Yes, it IS ridiculous. What will happen to organizational life without the balance of genders and the different perspectives that are brought to the table (and the Table!) by people of different genders and backgrounds? It will become a Nazi like space with no room for other ideas and ideologies. This is not because it has no women, but because you are confining thoughts, freedom and basic rights of people.
Sure, there are downsides: financial outflow, yes. But have the corporate thought about the financial advantages of inclusion and positive energies at work? Project timeline and delivery hiccups, absolutely? However, are they willing to compromise on creativity and quality? Women have been said to have an uncanny ability to focus and drive results in a short period of time and at the end of the day the results are more important than time spent in the office. In fact, mothers can be more productive in their own space and over time they will tend to have more loyalty towards the company.
We are not saying, women bring this to the workspace and men don’t. We are just putting the perspective out there that without the inclusion and without thought for the long term good of our species and society, growth gets stifled. This not only stands good in the corporate world, but it will spill over and have a ripple effect on every aspect of our lives right from infancy and school experiences to shaping society’s attitude toward lynching mobs and an equitable world.
So what are we saying organizations should do to try and strike this ‘world view’ balance?
- It is certainly a good idea to plan your budgets properly. Don’t end up resenting people who have babies because you think they are slowing down your business while they have a life. When people and manpower budgets are drawn up, do take into account not only this one aspect of maternity benefit to women, but also the other ‘hidden’ costs of employment that we rarely talk about: PF, ESI, Bonus, Gratuity…these are all must-dos in the Indian world of employment. Maternity benefit is just another must-do and one that impacts not only new mothers, but the next generation of human beings!
- Educate managers to view employees equitably and encourage them to remove the gender bias while hiring
- Ensure top management is sending the message of ‘big picture’ and ‘world-view’ down the line consistently. They have to walk the talk and be seen to hold this view. Else there will be no conviction and all your education and diversity awareness building will be in vain.
- Company policies have to support the perspective being mooted by senior management.
- Project plans will have to be made realistically with real-life situations accounted for.
- Manpower budgets will have to take possible maternity time into account just as we take annual earned leave into account as a reality of employing human beings.
While this move is extremely beneficial for mothers, we wonder when such reforms will be brought in for fathers? In fact, there’s another whole debate we can have around the role of fathers with infants and what the corporate world is doing to support them.
Currently, a new father gets 5 to 10 days of paternity leave in some organizations. Private companies in India are not obligated to give any paternity leave. There are companies such as Google India and ThoughtWorks India that give up to four weeks of paternity leave and Facebook gives four months of paternity leave. Will other companies follow suit, we wonder?
