Breaking Barriers - A Parental Leave Policy For All

A cursory look at the page that you’re currently reading this on (ourway.rocks) will reinforce our fierce commitment to maintaining a people-first approach in everything we do.

Having been in the work consultancy industry for over a decade and through our various interventions for clients, interactions with media houses, and numerous home-grown initiatives, we have contributed to improving organizational culture and practices in a small but successful way.

So when the time came to draft our own Parental Leave Policy, we let our values guide us.

Really Inclusive

Before crafting this, we looked at the gaps in existing policies and thought about what we can do to support new parents, in a better, more holistic manner. Our director Asif Upadhye made it clear when he said - “This is not a policy to us. It is the way we think things should be. We want to emphasize the inherent value of a person and their life choices as opposed to ascribed identity tags and titles. Becoming a parent should not impact employee well-being negatively and the onus of ensuring this lies squarely with the employer. This is our way of leading the way for real empathy especially when corporate culture is known to work the other way round. The aim is to offer comprehensive leave to team member/s irrespective of their life choices to effectively manage emotional, biological, and psychological changes that come with being a parent & provide them paid - time off to take care of their health and well-being and bond with their child before returning to work.”

With such sentiments shared across the board, our Parental Leave Policy gained easy buy-in from all our stakeholders.

Features We Are Proud Of

What makes this policy awesome is that it does not differentiate who a ‘parent’ is on the basis of their gender, marital status, orientation and/or gender identity.

Take a look at some of the main highlights:

● 26 weeks of paid leave to birth parents - irrespective of their gender or marital status

● 12 weeks of paid leave to commissioning parents

● 16 weeks of paid leave for surrogate parents & 4 weeks of paid leave for foster parents

● Extended parental leave of 4 weeks (paid) in case of an illness due to problems in pregnancy, delivery, stillborn, medical termination of pregnancy, premature birth of a child, or tubectomy/vasectomy operation

● Counseling, ergonomic seating, and daycare reimbursements

● No impact on appraisals upon return

Envisioning A Better Future For All

We are glad that our efforts to ensure that work does not come in the way of having a fulfilling life are being noticed and appreciated. The numerous PR pieces that came out in support of this policy indicate to us that the corporate world (and beyond) is ready to acknowledge the needs of its employees.

We are hopeful that more companies will come forward to offer better benefits to their employees. Because for us, what has guided our vision in all these years and across all types of projects, is our commitment to improving people’s lives at work.

Got questions about our policy or just want to share a few thoughts with us?

We’re all ears!