Zomato Just Gave Men and Women 26 Weeks Paid Maternity And That's Exactly What The World Needs Right Now

Food-delivery app, Zomato, on June 3, made changes to its parental leave policies. For women across the 13 countries it has presence, Zomato will be offering 26 weeks paid leave, or will follow the government mandated policy, whichever is more.

In a landmark move, the 26-week leaves will be extended to men as well.

¡°One core issue that leads to fewer women leaders in organisations, the community, and the nation is the lack of universal paid parental leave. Currently, it is hard for women to lead a healthy family life and focus on their careers, leading to a lot of women leaving their jobs or putting their careers on the back burner. This results in a pressing lack of diversity across all levels of the organisation, and needs to be solved proactively,¡± Deepinder Goyal, founder of Zomato said in a blogpost.

A lot of imbalance is seen in leaves extended to men and women when they welcome their child to the world.

The policy also applies to non-birthing parents, and in cases of surrogacy, adoption and same-sex partners. Additionally, new parents will also be given an endowment of $1000, per child.

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The move has set a new benchmark for both, women who need their spouses after having a baby and men, who want to spend more time with their family.

Women often tend to leave their jobs and put their careers on the backseat, and this results in fewer women in workforce and organisations. This results in unrelenting lack of diversity across all levels of the organisation.

Maternity leave of 26 weeks is mandatory as per Indian laws across organisations in India. Men are only entitled to two-week paternity leave.

Last month, alcoholic beverage maker Diageo announced a new family leave policy for employees across its business. The company offers 26-week maternity leave and four weeks of paternity leave. It also said that a significant number of Diageo's businesses will move to 26 weeks fully paid paternity leave.

The move is praiseworthy and has garnered accolades from everyone. Equal parental leave is the only way male-female power imbalances will ever be successfully addressed.