Zeta, a modern banking tech unicorn has rolled out a slew of initiatives toward parental support and introduced employee-centric policies.
The company is moving away from gender-based differentiation for parental leave and categorizing it on a birth basis. The modifications in the new policy are below.
- Firstly, The policy looks at the role of primary or secondary caregivers.
- Secondly, there will be no differentiation between natural birth, surrogacy, or adoption.
- As per the new policy, a primary caregiver can take up to 26 weeks of paid leave. Also, for new parents who are unable to come back to work post the 26-week mark, additional time off will be given. Primary caregivers can take an additional 12 weeks of unpaid leave.
- Secondary caregivers can take up to four weeks of paid leave. Also, they have an additional two weeks of unpaid leave if they are unable to join back to work.
Margaret Dsouza, Head of HR at Zeta said, “Over the last year or so, we have been relooking at our D&I charter, and realized that we wanted to reform the entire leave policy and our guidelines around maternity, paternity, and related benefits. The new policy we have rolled out came into effect in April.”
“Even if I look at the average age at Zeta right now, I think three to four years ago we had very low numbers of new parents because of course, the entire organization was relatively on the younger side. Last 2-3 years witnessed a lot of them getting married, and starting their family. So we see that the next two, or three years will be crucial for us to make sure that we give them enough support for their new life stage.” She added.
The company currently has 1,500 employees. In case new parents need extended time off the company will also allow for clubbing this parental leave with accrued leave.
The benefits further includes that the new parents can also choose to work for reduced hours at full compensation for the same time frame.
- A commute allowance of Rs. 1000 per day for pregnant women employees for the duration of their pregnancy, lactation rooms in the office.
- The company will also provide daycare benefits under which the company will provide Rs. 8000 per month towards daycare/caregiver fees.
- Furthermore, adoptive parents will give Rs. 50,000 as reimbursement for paperwork.
- The company is also looking at providing enhanced support while the parent is at work or even at home.
