Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecommunications services provider, announced that its women employees can now avail maternity leave of up to 22 weeks – up from 12 weeks currently. The enhanced benefits are applicable for adoption as wee - women employees can avail 12 weeks of maternity leave if the child’s age is leass than 2 years and 6 weeks if age is above 2 years. The male employees can also avail 1 week of paternity leave in both the cases.
Additionally, the company provides flexible work options to the working mothers before fully resorting to full working hours post maternity leave. Airtel’s Gurgaon office also provides modern day care facilities for children of its employees.
The recent changes in the parental policy are in accordance with the company’s vision to make Airtel a great place to work and promote gender diversity across all management levels. The organization recognizes the physical, emotional and psychological demands of childbirth/adoption and wants to provide adequate support to employees in maintaining balance between their role as parents and their professional commitments at work. The company is committed to provide same or equivalent role/position to an employee upon her return after availing maternity leave. Also, the period when an employee was on maternity leave will not be taken into account for performance assessment.
Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India & South Asia), Bharti Airtel, said. “We are fully committed to promote gender diversity across all levels of the organization. With this new policy, our aim is to offer adequate work-life balance to our women employees and ensure that they continue to contribute to the Airtel growth story.”
