Wellness | Zomato Grants 26-week Parental Leave to its Employees
In a recent announcement, Zomato, the global company started granting its employees, globally 26 weeks of paid parental leave. This was given to their staff globally not only for mothers, but equally to fathers as well. This directive will also apply to surrogate, adoptive parents, as well as
same-sex parents across all
operational countries, including the Philippines.
This revolutionary move encourages new parents to spend more time with their newborns.
In countries
where government-mandated leave policy is more than 26 weeks, Zomato will be
following the local regulations, offering the same increased number of weeks to
both mothers and fathers. Along with the
leave, Zomato will also offer a $1,000 endowment per child to the parents
working with the company. All the employees who welcomed a child six
months prior to this policy change will also enjoy the new benefits.
Zomato’s
CEO, Deepinder Goyal, announced that one core issue that
leads to fewer women leaders in organizations, the community, and the nation is
the lack of universal paid parental leave. It is hard for women to lead a healthy family life and focus on their careers at the same time, leading to a lot of
women leaving their jobs or putting their careers on the back burner. The lack of diversity stems from an unequal leave policy for
men and women when they welcome their children to this world. “There
won't be even an iota of difference in parental leave policy for men and women
at Zomato going forward," said Deepinder in a blog post.
This new policy by Zomato raises the
bar and aims to
create a more unified view towards primary caregiving—and one that no longer alienates half of the
company’s workforce. Deepinder
urges more governments and companies to follow the example set by Nordic
countries, which encourages both parents to assume equal responsibility. "We also wish that governments
across the world institutionalized paid parental leave," he said. "We will never have
truly gender-neutral organizations unless we have gender-neutral communities
and gender-neutral nations."
Once again, awesome news, Zomato!