This IT company offers three months leave for new dads

We've been hearing about maternity leave and the recently passed landmark bill doubled the time off given to new mothers to six months. On the other hand, in India, paternity leave is a relatively newer concept. But, for IT companies, it could emerge as a benefit that could help outplay one another to retain the best talent by offering employee benefits.

Salesforce takes a leap by offering employees a 3-month paternity leave. According to a report in The Economic Times, Jnanesh Kumar, director, Employee Success (India), Salesforce, said, “We believe offering paid paternity leave is the right thing to do, the right way to treat our employees. Becoming a new parent is a huge undertaking. For parents who are forced to take unpaid family leave, the situation becomes infinitely more challenging. A strong paternity policy helps in addressing work-life conflicts which are a reality for both men and women after the birth of a baby. More importantly, we want to encourage people in India to talk about paternity leave and remove the stigma from women."

Salesforce has more than 25,000 employees and its Indian offices are in Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Recently, Microsoft India had jumped onto the bandwagon. The company had increased its paternity leave period to six weeks. It was Cummins India that had the longest paternity leave prior to Microsoft of about one month. On the other hand, most companies are offering 10 days of paternity leave.

"We hope the extended parental leave benefits will further improve work-life balance for our employees, and help them transition back to the workplace at a time and pace that is more conducive to such a major development in their lives," Ira Gupta of Microsoft had said.

"At Microsoft, we are continually assessing, refining, and enhancing the world-class benefits we offer to ensure we are meeting the needs of our diverse employee population," Gupta had said.

With inputs from PTI

• Paternity
• Paternity leave
• IT company
• Salesforce
• Microsoft india