[hrman]

Volvo's policy is actually 24 weeks parental leave, i.e 6 months (loosely translated to 120 working days) and allowed over a three year period.
I think these type of practices need to be evaluated more holistically from the long term effect and should be need based.

Let me cite an example of the existing maternity leave law. When the maternity law increased the legally paid leave for women to 6 months, my organisation had already introduced this much before it became a law. We allowed further 6 months leave at 40% pay to women, which could be taken as soon as the six months paid leave got over. This has been exercised by 100% of the female colleagues going on maternity.
Now, let's look at this from a business point of view. That's a full 12 months where the headcount is not available. Due to Global restrictions, the Team manager is not allowed to recruit another resource for 12 months. The fallout of this? The rest of the team needs to bear the burden of the colleague on leave for one year. The other fallout: Managers become ultra cautious and an unconscious bias creeps in that depending on age, women will be unproductive for 1 year. Thereby leading to a lesser intake of women. Another phenomenon observed lately is that due to the work stress, many couples are able to plan and start a family much later in life and some rely on IVF methods. Due to likely complications of IVF and late age conceving, women are being advised complete bed rest for 3-6 months before the delivery, further contributing to an even longer physical absence from the work place.
I am all for long maternity breaks for women, considering the physical and emotional changes they undergo on becoming a mother, but this comes with its own share of repercussions, which are realised much later. Set back in their careers by a year, more gender pay disparity is another result.
For men, with WFH becoming more common place, I personally feel such long leave can be made optional, especially for smaller sized teams within the particular age group demographic.

That aside, kudos to Volvo for thinking more progressively and bringing in a disruptive point of view.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by hrman

Let me cite an example of the existing maternity leave law. When the maternity law increased the legally paid leave for women to 6 months, my organisation had already introduced this much before it became a law. We allowed further 6 months leave at 40% pay to women, which could be taken as soon as the six months paid leave got over. This has been exercised by 100% of the female colleagues going on maternity.
Now, let's look at this from a business point of view. That's a full 12 months where the headcount is not available. Due to Global restrictions, the Team manager is not allowed to recruit another resource for 12 months. The fallout of this? The rest of the team needs to bear the burden of the colleague on leave for one year. The other fallout: Managers become ultra cautious and an unconscious bias creeps in that depending on age, women will be unproductive for 1 year. Thereby leading to a lesser intake of women.

Thanks for tabling this point as I'm sure it is on the minds of a lot of employees and employers of both genders for different reasons.

The problem in the example stated, which is way too common especially in the IT industry, is with the company and its narrow and out dated rules and not with the concept of giving women adequate time off for bearing and bringing up an infant. These policies of companies then feed the chauvinistic worries of the supervisors of both genders by the way. Interestingly I did not always find senior women being empathetic to junior women on such matters!

Fair and accommodating employee policies are good overall as they give a message of the employers attitude. If a wayward employee tries to be over clever and take undue advantage then crack down in him/her - at least that was the way I ran my business.

The maternity time off is not just for the mother but also for the baby in order to allow time for the baby's emotional, mental well being in its most formative year.

[Hayek]

Great initiative, especially if it encourages men to share the “burden” of child rearing and enables women to manage their careers more effectively.

Sometimes I feel, it should be made compulsory to take such leave - any leave which is not compulsory is not taken by the ambitious, and those who take leave are then seen as slackers.

When we had our son in 2007, I used 5 days privilege leave when our son was born. We now give employees 5 days paternity leave. But in an industry where you never use you entire leave, all that happens is folks end up using only 5 - 10 days of their 25 days privilege leave through a year in which they have taken the paternity leave - and overall leave utilisation does not rise.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by hrman

The rest of the team needs to bear the burden of the colleague on leave for one year. The other fallout: Managers become ultra cautious and an unconscious bias creeps in that depending on age, women will be unproductive for 1 year. Thereby leading to a lesser intake of women.

The solution is to have more female managers obviously!

Originally Posted by hrman

Another phenomenon observed lately is that due to the work stress, many couples are able to plan and start a family much later in life and some rely on IVF methods. Due to likely complications of IVF and late age conceiving, women are being advised complete bed rest for 3-6 months before the delivery,

Let's be clear about one thing; I don’t think couples “rely” on IVF ever!. Couples that opt for IVF tend to have struggled for many years before going the IVF way.

What is true is that women all over the world have their first child later in life than before. Currently in the EU the average age for a woman to have her first baby is about 30 years of age. IVF succes rates are highest in women in 20s, early 30s and rapidly decline at over 35-40 years of age. IVF is not a magic trick.

In many western countries IVF is part of National Health Programs. But more often than not, it is simply not available to women over 40-45 years due to a very limited succes rate.

Depends a bit countries per country, but the IVF induced babies are only 1-2% of the total number of babies born each year. So no matter what, IVF is a very marginal phenomenon. (Although a very big thing for the couple that opts for it, obviously).

But essentially up to 30 -35 years of age, neither fertility or complications is a major factor at all. Women having to stay in bed for 3-6 months due to complications are very rare as far as I am aware.

The notion that long paternity leave and paternity leave for both partners is a problem for business is just a sign of not being used to it yet. There is plenty of evidence that it is actually very beneficial for big and small companies. In fact there are quite a few very successful (Swedish) start up companies too that claim to have benefitted from it:

https://newrepublic.com/article/1226...ens-start-boom

Again, some of this can be very dependent on a nation or a market, but many companies are beginning to realise more and more that in order for them to attract talent they have to offer an attractive renumeration package going way beyond salary and promotion. A lot of young folks are looking for more flexibility between their personal and professional life.

My daughter became a mum (so I am a granddad now, YEAH), 10 months ago at the age of 30. She and her husband have both university degrees and neither of them have ever held a full time job. Because they are not interested in working five days a week.

They both work 4 days a week, are both very successful in their own careers, and now they share looking after Bella between the two of them too.

Jeroen

[DigitalOne]

Let me reframe this debate - If an employee wants to go on extended paternity/maternity leave, is it right to deny this job to an unemployed youth? That too in a country like India with its unemployment problem, and a young demographic.

Too often we see things from a western perspective - with problems of declining (and aging) populations, lower fertility, relatively less unemployment issues - and try to fit it into our contexts.

These policies are great for the concerned employees, probably also great for the companies (great publicity!!), but I have my reservations about the benefit for the Indian society.

[Gannu_1]

Lovely initiative. Will immensely help the mother and the family to settle down with the newborn baby. I wish more companies adopted this policy. At least 20 days to a month to start with. Our organisation (L&T) doesn’t have one in place; we just apply leave and scoot.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

Let me reframe this debate - If an employee wants to go on extended paternity/maternity leave, is it right to deny this job to an unemployed youth? That too in a country like India with its unemployment problem, and a young demographic.

So you think it is better that the mother (with her child) will be unemployed?

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

So you think it is better that the mother (with her child) will be unemployed?

No, I just think that the European context is different to the Indian one. If I had solutions, I would have written it.

[ads11]

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

Let me reframe this debate - If an employee wants to go on extended paternity/maternity leave, is it right to deny this job to an unemployed youth? That too in a country like India with its unemployment problem, and a young demographic.

Too often we see things from a western perspective - with problems of declining (and aging) populations, lower fertility, relatively less unemployment issues - and try to fit it into our contexts.

These policies are great for the concerned employees, probably also great for the companies (great publicity!!), but I have my reservations about the benefit for the Indian society.

I think framing this as juxtaposed between European and Indian society is an unfortunate choice. Forgive me here if it seems I'm reaching with my analogy but consider how your basic human rights are held valid globally regardless of regional context? Well why should labour rights be any different? Why shouldn't working men & women be entitled to leave after the birth of their child when the intangible and tangible benefits are there for all to see?

But let's go back to your premise. You worry that having say a working mother or father away on leave for a large spell, with HR restricted from hiring a permanent replacement, isn't going to help the young employees entering the job market. Well they can join as maternity or paternity cover. I was tapped up recently by a recruiter asking if I wanted to cover paternity leave for someone. It was strictly for the month he was taking leave so sure it wasn't permanent but at least it would've been work experience and paid work and you know how youngsters are up against that old catch 22 of entry level jobs asking for ludicrous past experience? Well, cover stints in this manner could go some way towards padding out the resume and who knows, it's a foot in the door. Do a good enough job and you might end up being considered for a permanent role when it next comes up. (Disclaimer: I never took that job because it didn't interest me but the recruiter and the company were both clear it had a pathway to a permanent role down the line at the same firm or within the industry).
I just think it's a bit of a case of cutting off the nose to spite the face if we deny progressive parenthood leave for workers in India just on the pretext of the perennial bountiful young & unemployed in the country (the latter should be a problem for govt, they should be providing the impetus). India isn't famed for its work culture and this move by Volvo in India is a rare example of a firm in India showing how you can adopt one of the better practices of work culture here in Europe or at least in Scandinavia.

And while you correctly point out that India indeed is experiencing a demographic dividend and has a population pyramid very different to Europe, how long do you think it (India) will continue to buck the trend? On average if we look at the metrics, falling mortality rates and fertility rates are the broad strokes of the global signal once you cut out the noise and to me at least its inevitable that by the end of say my working lifetime we'll be looking at some of the same problems as old man Europe faces today. Shouldn't we get ahead of the curve and adopt changes to foster a positive work environment to encourage and enable parents to balance work & family now itself so that it is already ingrained by the time it becomes truly needed? Who knows, we might obviate a lot of the issues in the process.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

I did not always find senior women being empathetic to junior women on such matters!

Very true sir, can recall an incident from early in my career, a couple of us guys were handed a plum project by our female manager and she actually admitted to us that "It's because you are guys and can work late while xyz (a very competent female colleague, who was senior to us and actually much better suited to handle that project) can't." The irony was that this particular manager had herself availed of maternity leave a year before this and came back to her job! Heights of hypocrisy! I work in a function that is one of the few that actually tends to have more women employees than men and frankly, I haven't seen women managers be any more sympathetic to employees' personal needs than male managers. Hence, the need for policies like this that apply irrespective.

Originally Posted by Jeroen

The notion that long paternity leave and paternity leave for both partners is a problem for business is just a sign of not being used to it yet.

Absolutely!

Originally Posted by ads11

Forgive me here if it seems I'm reaching with my analogy but consider how your basic human rights are held valid globally regardless of regional context?

Originally Posted by ads11

Shouldn't we get ahead of the curve and adopt changes to foster a positive work environment to encourage and enable parents to balance work & family now itself so that it is already ingrained by the time it becomes truly needed?

Too radical a notion for most Indian HR departments right now I'm afraid! The notion of valuing an employee as a valuable, long-term resource exists only in the culture some of the smaller companies. (The bigger ones all just use 'company culture' as a fancy catchphrase without any real meaning or understanding!) But hopefully that will change.

Originally Posted by ads11

...isn't going to help the young employees entering the job market. Well they can join as maternity or paternity cover.

Absolutely. Not just younger employees, even for more experienced ones. My wife got her present job in this way, she was hired as a temp to cover for an employee who was on maternity leave. Ten years later, both of them (she and the employee who she was covering for) are still with the company and both have grown through several roles.

At this stage in my career, I'm also looking at taking up multiple freelancing and temporary roles, as opposed to full-time with one company. Things like this will hopefully create more opportunities for mid-career folks like me too, not just for the younger employees.

[Bhargav7]

A quick point while we compare India's maternity/paternity policies to other countries -

In most of the European countries, the cost of maternity leaves is reimbursed by Governments (at least partially). In India, the Government only makes rules, the cost is to be borne by the employers.


Also, employee retention is very high in most western countries. You will see people working in the same organizations for decades at a time. And hence, the employers are more willing to take the costs of paid leaves. In India, the scenario is quite different. As @harman pointed out, we often see quite a lot of employees who cash out the paid leave and then quit. Small businesses will understand this better!

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by ads11

You worry that having say a working mother or father away on leave for a large spell, with HR restricted from hiring a permanent replacement, isn't going to help the young employees entering the job market. Well they can join as maternity or paternity cover.

Thanks for a thoughtful response. Maternity/Paternity cover is a good option.

Another could be Fixed-Term employments which the government has recently introduced. Not sure how it will work out since this is newly introduced by the government.

Originally Posted by ads11

India isn't famed for its work culture and this move by Volvo in India is a rare example of a firm in India.

I work for an IT major which is headquartered in Western Europe. My company is known for friendly employee policies, almost equivalent to what my colleagues in Europe get (no extended paternity leave yet ), and I am personally benefited by the rather liberal HR policies of my company.

Yet I cannot shake the feeling that my limited experience working in a Europe-based IT company is not the Indian reality. What I see around in my neighborhood areas of Bangalore like Bomannahalli, or Hulimavu is massive unemployment with shuttered garment factories and I fear that extended maternity/paternity leaves are just too elitist (personal opinion).

Of course, this is for the government to solve, not for Volvo/my company.

[srini1785]

I am all for 120 days of paternal maternity leave (how do you call it?) but I do hope that they restrict it to max 2 children only for Indian operations. Anything thereafter the company can probably ask the employee to reimburse the company for the full 240 days of labor.

[dragonfire]

Sounds good for PR, but very unfair to those people who have to work harder to pay the employees who go on paid leave. I am all for unpaid leaves, for whatever duration they want - even for a couple of years. But paid leave? Where do they think the money that is used to pay these employees comes from? Why should the others foot the bill for somebody's life choices?

Why can't people work save up for starting a family and then go on a long leave and come back when they are done? It's not like the world is in dire need of new headcount.

My views hold good for maternity leaves too.

[Miyata]

In the US and many of the European countries, very few people have household help (nannies, maids, cooks, etc). It sure makes more sense to have such policies there.

In India, most people have good amount of help around the house. It would make more sense to have unpaid parental leave! Most of us will not like it, but the cultural and societal differences should play a part in parity building!

I wouldn't mind taking unpaid leave towards my parental responsibilities. Although I didn't have to!