Cos to review surrogacy leave policy

Mumbai: India Inc has been progressively ahead in its thinking on providing employee benefits during crucial life stages such as maternity and child care. Before the government introduced the 26-weeks maternity leave bill, leading companies were already following the practice. But with the government now coming up with a bill that puts several restrictions on surrogacy, companies offering surrogacy leave for childcare are planning to review their policies.

The new bill allows only “altruistic surrogacy” to childless couples who have been married for five years. Several companies, including the Tata Group, Mondelez India Foods and Microsoft, have framed policies offering leave to employees who have a child through surrogacy. Companies offer such flexible options to allow women an opportunity to boost their careers even as they manage the demands of home and family.

Many companies TOI contacted declined to comment on the matter. Some companies, which were planning to introduce surrogacy leave as part of their maternity policy, said they may not go ahead with it.

Quintiles, a bio-pharmaceutical services provider which has a workforce that comprises a larger percentage of women, recently revised its maternity policy. Intikhab Wani, VP-HR, Quintiles, said: “Our maternity policy has recently been reviewed and revised against this objective and current legislation. Given that the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016 has been up for discussion in Parliament, we decided not to incorporate it in our current maternity policy until there is complete clarity around the bill. We do evaluate such requests on a case to case basis.”

The Tata Group, for instance, offers six months paid maternity leave for child born thorough surrogacy. Under its refurbished parental policy, Mondelez India Foods also formally covers alternative forms of parenthood like surrogacy. Such internal policies apply to all employees and they have been framed given the transforming social conventions.

Rachna Mukherjee, chief HR officer, Schneider Electric India, which also offers surrogacy leave to its employees, said, “As a progressive organization, all our policies are created keeping in line with the fast-changing social scenario. With employee well-being as our primary agenda, it is our constant effort to introduce, refurbish and develop policies that serves the need of the hour in this ever changing scenario.”

It is with this objective that most of these companies also offer paternity leave and adoption leave to its employees even though there are no mandated government laws regarding this.

Rohit Thakur, director-HR, Microsoft India, said: “It is our continuous endeavour to support our employees in the best possible ways and empower them to do more both at work and at home. A key component of this is supporting them with flexibility to spend time with their children. Our maternity leave policy covers all new parents — biological as well as those who adopt. We grant leave to commissioning parents along the same lines as to parents who adopt, on a case-to-case basis.”