Zomato announces a 26-week paid leave for parents of all genders, sexualities – $1000 bonus per child for new parents

• Zomato announced a 26-week paid parental leave for men, women and same-sex partners.
• The benefits also extend to non-birthing parents, like those in the cases of surrogacy or adoption.
• The new parents will also receive a $1,000 bonus per child.

Indian foodtech unicorn Zomato has today announced an inclusive parental leave policy for new parents.

Breaking barriers, the startup introduced a 26-week leave for both men and women and also non-birthing parents Including same-sex partners, surrogacy and adoption.

Not just that, the startup has also announced a $1,000 bonus per child for new parents. The newly introduced policy also holds true for employees of Zomato who have had kids in the last six months.

The financial benefits come in as primary-childcare costs have skyrocketed in India. Zomato founder, Deepinder Goyal took to Twitter to share the announcement.

“One core issue that leads to fewer women leaders in organisations, the community, and the nation is the lack of universal paid parental leave. Currently, it is hard for women to lead a healthy family life and focus on their careers, leading to a lot of women leaving their jobs or putting their careers on the back burner. This results in a pressing lack of diversity across all levels of the organization, and needs to be solved proactively,” Goyal said in a blogpost.

This comes as a welcome step in the Indian corporate setup, where even today only select companies offer a paid parental leave for men. To encourage the LGBTQ community at the workplace, it is extremely important to offer benefits for same-sex partners, a step that Zomato has rightly taken.

Zomato which operates in 13 countries globally, is going to its parental leave policy take forward, there too. “For women across the globe (we have teams in 13 countries as we speak), we will be offering 26 weeks paid leave, or will follow the government mandated policy, whichever is more. We will be offering exactly the same benefits to men as well,” Goyal wrote.

See Also:
Uber’s IPO filing in the US cites Ola, Zomato, and Swiggy as threats to its India business