“Over half the world menstruates at one time or another, but you’d never know,” could comedian Margaret Cho have spoken the more right words? Accepting that a woman is on her cycle has always been a matter of shame and stigma, especially in the Indian culture.
Aiming to eradicate this stigma, Zomato has announced today periods leave policy for women. The Gurugram-based company has introduced ten days period leaves in a year for all the women employees, which include transgender people as well.
All the women employees are allowed to have one period leave for each menstrual cycle.
“ Zomato understands that men and women are born with different biological realities. It is our job to make sure that we make room for our biological needs, while not lowering the bar for the quality of our work and the impact that we create,” said Deepinder Goyal, CEO of Zomato.
Citing its illustrations to make this change, Zomato mentioned how there has been shame or stigma attached to applying for a period leave. Goyal added that the women employees should feel free to tell people on internal groups, or emails that they are on their period leave for the day.
However, the company also stressed not to abuse these leaves to use them to take time out for other pending tasks and should only be used if the person is really unable to attend office.
Importantly, this is not the first time when Zomato has taken charge of itself to initiate a change for equality. In June last year, the company had brought 26-week universal paid maternity leave for both- women and men.
With the latest move, Zomato has become one of the very few companies in India that offer its employees period leaves. Cultural Machine, Horses Stable, and FlyMyBiz, among others, are the local companies that provide its female workers the first day off of their cycle.
Though uncommon in India, the concept of period leaves is not new. Countries such as Australia, Indonesia, Japan, and China provide such leaves to its female staff from the last several decades.
