P&G delinks parental leave from gender, marriage – Times of India

MUMBAI: Procter & Gamble (P&G) India has introduced an inclusive parental leave policy called ‘share the care’. The move will enable all new parents working at the FMCG company to avail of the leave, irrespective of gender or marital status.
The company said in a statement this will entitle all new parents — including biological parents, domestic partners, adoptive parents or parents in same-sex couples — to 8 weeks fully paid leave. This builds on the company’s existing maternity leave policy of 26 weeks for birthing mothers and adoption leave of 26 weeks for primary caregivers.
P&G VP and head (human resources), Indian sub-continent, P M Srinivas said, “We believe care for home and family has no gender. Our new ‘share the care’ parental leave policy drives positive change by providing equal opportunity to all parents to share caregiving for new family members. ‘Share the care’ programme is not just a policy change, but a step towards shifting cultural norms in India by making child caregiving unbiased. It also helps new parents spend more time with the child and enable effective bonding, especially in the early weeks. It also allows both parents to provide support to each other on this journey.”

Over the last few years, more companies have progressed on the parental leave front. Companies like Deutsche Bank India offer parental leave of 26 weeks to the primary caregiver irrespective of gender. Zomato too offers a 26-week paternity leave. Tata Steel, on the other hand, rolled out an HR policy that enables colleagues from the LGBTQ+ community to declare their partners and avail all HR benefits including adoption leave, new-born parent leave, child care leave.
As part of new declarations made by P&G on gender equality in India, the company said it will drive equality behind the camera by creating equal opportunities, capability and resource sharing. Over the next three years, P&G has committed to have equal representation of female directors for its advertisements across brands in India. Further, P&G said it will spend Rs 300 crore by deliberately working with women-owned businesses in India over the next three years.
In order to provide equal opportunity for women in STEM roles, P&G said it will build digital and technological capability of 10,000+ women across P&G’s external network (including customers, retailers and agency partners) over the next year.