24-weeks of maternity leave and more: Now Flipkart woos women employees with maternal benefits

E-commerce major Flipkart has joined a growing list of  brick-and-mortar companies that are making the workplace more attractive for women by offering a n extended maternity leave of 24 weeks plus four months of flexi-working hours with full pay, and, if required a one-year career break without pay, the Times of India reported today.  

The report further said that Flipkart is hoping to  benefit young and expecting mothers who can continue with the same job after a maternity break or a post-maternity career break. The company also offers transport reimbursement benefit, parenting counselling, maternity tie-ups with hospitals, child care support for all employees and insurance benefits.

Apart from e-tail, banks  and telcos too are doling out women-centric benefits.  Just to give the new mothers a respite, Citibank is offering women employees in India a childcare allowance up to Rs 1.32 lakh a year, in addition to their salaries, for spending on daycare services of their choice.

The bank has also introduced a flexible maternity policy, which allowed women employees to avail their maternity leave of 180 days in three different options. Women officers could either avail of leave for a continuous period of six months or exercise flexibility in the leave duration by opting for leave in tranches.

PNB MetLife India Insurance has rolled out maternity benefits this year for women employees who opt for surrogacy, granting them four weeks leave — the same as for adoption.

At JP Morgan India as well, a staff member has the option to stagger her leave.

Vodafone is also offering 16 weeks fully paid maternity leave to women employees and full pay for a 30-hour week for the first six months after their return to work.

In fact, corporates are slowly adopting flexible maternity policies in India . Conscious of the fact that maternity is a key milestone when significant numbers of women decide to stop working , InMobi recently  launched their new flexible maternity leave policy  which includes four months of full paid leave, followed by half day paid leave along with work from home facility for up to 6 months.The maternity coverage stands at Rs 75,000.

Even Accenture has increased the maternity-leave benefits for its full-time and part-time women employees in India to 22 weeks of paid leave, up significantly from the current statutory requirement of 12 weeks. In addition, the company  offers its employees in India up to eight weeks of fully paid adoption leave for primary caregivers of an adopted child, as well as one week of paid paternal leave for new fathers.

A recent Annual Employee Health and Benefits study by consultancy Marsh revealed that a majority of employers believe that employee choice in benefits would help improve employee retention and attraction and make employees see larger value in the benefits provided to them.