There is a good news for all working women who are planning to welcome a baby. You are now allowed to take maternity leave for more than half a year against traditional three months period.
Not just empty speeches on the rights of women, the Lok Sabha on Thursday passed the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Bill, 2016, to provide a slew of benefits to about 1.8 million working women.
While the move is appreciated widely, the bill might force private companies to rethink the decisions on hiring a married woman or a women in child bearing age, human resource experts said. "For any company, paid leave of 26 weeks means a lot. An employee missing for such long duration is just not affordable," said a HR head of a well-known FMCG firm requesting anonymity.
Several head hunters with whom Businessworld spoke to expressed similar concerns despite welcoming the move. "The decision will impact companies in the short term as it would double the cost paid for maternity benefits by the organisations. Also, the cost of hiring replacements will also be added to the budget basket maintained for maternity pay-outs," said Lohit Bhatia, business head, IKYA human capital firm.
Tagged as landmark decision by social media platforms, only two countries -- Canada (50 weeks) and Norway (44 weeks) are ahead of India in terms of duration of the maternity leave. Sadly, industry experts believe that the leave extension will increase the probability of hiring male candidates against the female candidates in many organisations.
"Cost of hiring women in the age group of 26 to 35, which is generally a child bearing age, may go up significantly. Also, no firm can afford the absence of an employee for period of six months,” said Kamal Karanth, former managing director at Kelly Services, US based staffing firm.
"Hence, the chances of choosing male candidate over the female candidate are brighter."
Some international studies demonstrate that such policies favouring women staffers may produce negative effects in small organizations in developing countries as during the maternity absence, mother realizes the importance of care taking and decide to remain at home beyond their maternity leave.
However, experts in India share different perspective. "With increased satisfaction during the maternity leave, the loyalty towards employer will eventually swell. In the long run, there will be a strong positive correlation with profits of the organisation as the productivity, creativity and retention of women employees will go up," said Nishith Upadhyaya, head of advisory and knowledge, The Society for Human Resource Management, a professional human resources membership association headquartered in the US.
Hiring prospects may not shrink at large, listed organisations but the openings at start-ups and SMEs for female candidates may contract in the short term, said experts.
"Organisations considering the impact on profit and loss statement may soon realize that maternity benefits are not only about women. Also, such policies will increase the productivity of men, who are new fathers. They will work in office without carrying the baggage of a sick wife or an unattended infant," said Aman Attree, group HR head, Hindustan Power Projects.
Among other things, the bill provides for 12 weeks of maternity leave to a woman who legally adopts a child under three months of age and a commissioning mother (defined as a biological mother) who uses her egg to have a surrogate child.
The bill also requires every establishment with 50 or more employees to provide creche facilities within a prescribed distance. The woman will be allowed four visits to the creche a day. This will include her interval for rest.
It has also made a provision under which an employer can permit a woman to work from home, if the nature of work assigned permits.
(With inputs from Kshitiz Mohan)
