Paternity Leave : Daddy Days Off!

It was when 2 female colleagues of mine availed a ‘maternity leave’ I recollected that a few months back I had had a chance to enjoy sweets distributed by a male colleague. He was sharing his happiness for having become a proud father.

As an HR professional I started to wonder if men should be given paternity leave rights just like women enjoy the privilege of availing maternity leave……Yes. Men do not give birth to children (literally), but they do become fathers and apart from what’s fair and unfair to them a logical argument would make more meaning to an HR professional.

Paternity Leave Law in India:

In India, the Central Government endorses the concept of granting paternity leaves to fathers along with maternity leaves to mothers. And it also makes all Central Government employees eligible for paid benefits for availing such leaves.

Rule 551(A) - Paternity Leave – 6^th Central Pay Commission-

•  A male CG servant (including an apprentice) with less than two surviving children may be granted 15 days Paternity Leave during the confinement of his wife for childbirth
• The Paternity Leave can be availed up to 15 days before or up to six months from the date of delivery of the child.
• Paternity Leave shall not be debited to the leave account.
• It shall not be refused under any circumstances.
• During paternity leave, leave salary equal to last pay drawn is admissible.

Well, the law does say so….but the private sector is not bound by this law and hence need of an argument whether giving fathers time off is essential or is an extra privilege that may not be required.

On some secondary research about Paternity Leave laws in India and other countries, I realised that the most common need of the hour is to receive both income and job-protected time off after the birth of a child. Here are some arguments that people of different professions from different countries have put forth…..

Arguments ‘FOR’ granting Paternity Leaves:

1. In the early stages of parenting, the presence of both mother and father is equally important for the child
2. As the mother is recuperating from post-partum depression, it becomes difficult for the mother to look after the child alone. With the father around, not only he can offer help with domestic chores, medical care of mother and child, but also give the mother moral or emotional support, and spend quality time with his family. In the first week when the mother and child are at the hospital a lot of running around is required and can be taken care of by the father. Paternity leave becomes very important when there have been complications during childbirth and extra care needs to be taken.
3. With changing culture in India, and changing family structures where women are also working, most families in cities are nuclear and may also have parents or elders living in another city, state or country. Also today grandparents might also be working and hence, reliance on babysitters, nannies and maids increases. Not to forget, not all households can afford to hire maids / nannies to take care of the child.
4. Why burden only the mothers? And also, if mothers can get a maternity leave, then in these times of gender-equality why not paternity leaves to the father?
5. Father-child bond in the early stages of life is very important, and who says that father does not feel the need of spending time with his new born? Even the father wants to witness all the ‘first-time’ doings of his new born.
6. Like Mum, Like Dad: Fathers should be prepared to do tasks like changing their child’s nappies and feeding food to the newborn
7. Fathers do end up availing some leaves amortizing on their paid leaves. They have to save on leaves right from the wife gets pregnant so that they can support her after child birth. This can get stressful. And when the employee ends up availing excess leaves, he might even undergo a loss of pay, which at this crucial times of multiplied expenses adds to the stress
8. Will the male employee be productive at work when his mind and soul would be with his wife and the child, and would he not take leaves often in the first few days after the child birth?

Arguments ‘AGAINST’ granting Paternity Leaves:

1. We already have maximum number of public holidays as compared to any other country
2. Engaging mother and father at the same time for one cause is not justified / necessary
3. The ‘man’ is not much helpful in pregnancy days. The pains and complications of pregnancy can be shared and solved with the women friends / relatives only.
4. Women in India generally go and live with their parents during delivery and few months afterwards
5. By taking 10/15 days leave, the couple increases chances of quarreling instead of helping each other
6. Men cannot waste time for long or afford any disruption in their career. They must not give priority to emotional feelings over career. Men would not like to put their career on hold, or give it a break
7. Men around the house during daytime are more of a hindrance. In India still....men are not that domesticised, maybe a decade down the line, things may change
8. Someone has to work to maintain the cash flow
9. Women are hardworking and dedicated unlike men. Handling of such responsibilities by men will only come with time. Hence, it is better to increase maternity leaves

Laws in Other countries:

·                                                                                             SWEDEN: A Revolutionary Policy

Parents are entitled to a total of 480 days paid leave per child, with both mothers and fathers entitled and encouraged to share the leave. The leave can be taken at any time until the child reaches the age of seven. Mothers and fathers are expected to share the 480 days equally.  It is possible for one parent to take up to 420 days of the total leave, but the remaining 60 days are then reserved for the other parent. In addition to the paid leave of 480 days per couple per child, you are entitled to reduce your working time by 25 percent. This, however, is not compensated for by the state.

Companies in India that grant Paternity Leaves:

Amongst many, below are a few companies that grant Paternity Leave to employees:

• NIIT claims to be the first to offer paternity leave from 1995.
• Employees of Infosys are eligible to avail three continuous working days of paternity leave and this option is available for the birth of the first two children.
• Omega Healthcare services – 5 days
• Datacraft India – 3 days
• Wipro Technologies – 0 days
• MNC’s in India such as Google, Cisco, Accenture, and Intel, most of which have paternity policies in place. Cisco Systems' India office has the most generous paternity leave of 12 weeks followed by Google India, which offers two weeks. Other multinationals which offer the privilege to their Indian staff include HSBC and Eli Lilly.

MY TAKE ON THIS:-

My Vote: ‘FOR’ granting paternity leaves to male employees

1. Entitlement to employees only up to 2 children by private sector companies
2. Paid Paternity Leave of 10 working days at the minimum be granted immediately on child birth (100% pay)
3. Entitlement to reduce working time by 25 percent during the first month immediately after availing 10 days of paid leave benefit
4. Paternity leave of 15 days be granted during the first 3 months at half pay (50% pay)

WHAT ARE YOUR VIEWS ON THIS???


- VAISHALI PARGAONKAR

Sources:

BBC News Europe, 20 October 2010

Women's Law Project Blog, June 24, 2010
DNA, Sunday, Oct 23, 2005

DNA, Monday, Feb 1, 2010

Mint, Thu, Nov 11 2010

Deccan Chronicle, February 26th, 2009

Wikipedia

HR Professionals by Rosario Longo: Can leadership abilities be detected in brain scan...

HR Professionals by Rosario Longo: Can leadership abilities be detected in brain scan...: "Whilst the debate about good leadership source is engaging a larger and larger number of HR professionals and business leaders, and is becom..."

Inspirational Stories of Famous Failures and Their Future Success

Came across a wonderful collection of Famous Failures and Their Future Success Stories....

Great source of inspiration!

"So you have tried something and you have failed. Maybe numerous times. If you have been told you have no talent, aren't cut out for "this business" or are never going to "make it in this line of work", Well don't be discouraged. The following are stories of other people who were told the same thing or something similar and went on to be major successes! You might just recognize a few:

The Vice President of Columbia told this actor that he was never going to make it in the business. The actor? - Harrison Ford

His first book was rejected by 12 publishing houses and sixteen agents. - John Grisham

Turned down by a recording company saying "We don't like their sound and guitar music is on the way out" They were talking about the Beatles

Was told by his father that he would amount to nothing and be a disgrace to himself and his family - Charles Darwin

Told by a music teacher "as a composer he is hopeless" - Beethoven

Was told that "he couldn't sing at all" Enrico Caruso

Fired from a newspaper because he "lacked imagination and had no original ideas" - Walt Disney

Were told by Publishers that "anthologies didn't sell" and the book was "too positive"

Rejected a total of 140 times. The book? Chicken Soup for the Soul. It now has 65 different titles and has sold over 80 million copies all over the world.

Told by a teacher he was "too stupid to learn anything" Thomas Edison

Failed the sixth grade - Winston Churchill

Wasn't able to speak until he was almost 4 years old and his teachers said he would "never amount to much" - Albert Einstein

Did poorly in school and failed at running the family farm - Isaac Newton

Was not allowed to wait on customers in the store he worked in because "he didn't have enough sense" - F. W. Woolworth

Was cut from the high school basketball team, went home, locked himself in his room and cried - Michael Jordan

Producer told her she was "unattractive" and could not act - Marilyn Monroe

This book was rejected 18 times before it was published. It then sold over one million copies the first year. The book was Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

Auditioned for All My Children and got rejected - Julia Roberts

Received 30 rejections and the author threw it in the trash. Luckily his wife fished it out again and encouraged him to resubmit it. The book was Carrie - the author Stephen King

As you can see, these are just a few of the people who refused to listen to the criticism or the "experts".

If they could do it - so can you!"

Aniket Pargaonkar: A speech by Narayana Murthy on Sitting late at wor...

Aniket Pargaonkar: A speech by Narayana Murthy on Sitting late at wor...: "Infosys' Chairman and Chief Mentor Officer (CMO) - Mr. Narayana Murthy's Speech on Late Sitting: Hope that many of us start leaving early ..."

Healthy Attrition .... Regulating the Churn Rate

Talk about attrition and it is always looked upon as a taboo.

Reasons: Cost of turnover (Recruitment cost, New Hire Costs, Training and development cost, Administration cost, lost productivity costs). But not all attrition is ‘bad attrition’.

Sometimes it becomes necessary for the development and growth of the organization. And this attrition is termed as ‘good attrition’ or ‘healthy attrition’.

The first argument coming forth while talking about ‘healthy attrition’ is “Are we only talking about low performers / less productive employees in the organization?” Not really. When low performers quit, the organization definitely benefits. But good attrition is not always about getting rid of the less productive staff, and attrition cannot be always termed as ‘bad’ whenever employee departs.

When employees have been with the organization for a long time contributing in every way to its growth; the learning curve bounds to take a dip after a stage. If the company cannot envision a clear career path for the employee, it is advisable to look for fresh talent. An acquaintance Mr. Vaz whose article on ‘Moderated Attrition’ inspired me to write this has rightly pointed out; and I would like to quote him here, “Anything that needs self renewal must go through a process of re-generation. Whether that be a tree that sheds leaves and grows new ones or whether the renewal of cells in our body.” Truly complacency is very injurious to health; for the employee and for the organization both. After all ‘Nothing is Irreplaceable!’

Some employees impact the culture of the organization negatively especially in organizations with less employee base. This is either because they have been in the organization for a long period, some from the time when the company was in the caterpillar stage of its life – cycle; and still possess an old school of thought. They fail to change with the changing times, they fail to adapt to the increasing employee strength, workforce attitudes, changing technology, changing processes and systems. They might know the inside-out of the company, but may not be emerging as effective leaders. And moreover, they add to manpower costs, scaling high on the compensation ladder, as the company makes attempts to retain them. Whether deserving or not is a question that remains unattended! Such static workforce should be replaced by new employees with new abilities & attitudes, new ideas, new technology thus saving the organization from becoming stagnant. Employees having a detrimental and demoralizing influence on the work-culture and team spirit are not appreciated in the role of leaders by the young blood that flows into the organization. Traditional mindset should be replaced with out-of-box thinking. Exhausted leadership should be replaced with vibrant, dynamic leadership.

Jack Welch, former Chairman and CEO of General Electric, also advocates this through his 20-70-10 principle, where he believes that “employees must be ranked into performance categories of the top 20%, middle 70%, and the bottom 10%, and then managing them “up or out” accordingly”. This differentiation helps identify the 20% star performers and cash cows that need to be rewarded, the ‘middle 70’ that can be trained and coached to move up the career path; and helps diagnose the 10% bottom-tier performers (haunting for a sustained period of time) that need to be moved out so fresh talent can be brought in. Such turnover of employee is good attrition for a company, presuming that the parameters for deciding the 20-70-10 employees are in synch with the goals of the organization.

“Healthy attrition helps release the choked pipes of organizations hierarchy.”

- VAISHALI PARGAONKAR

MBA Business ...Its all about money..

Why MBA? Well not many people ask this question today. After spending 3 years graduating (enjoying college) in arts/commerce/science, when one enters a 'happy realization' mode that he/she is one of those crores of graduates that have flocked out of an obsolete educational system, one wants to do 'something' in life. And that 'something' today is MBA; for students who know that they cant do computers and do not want to do CA. After all it serves as a visa for entry into good organisations. (I am not talking here of those handful of focussed students who decide very early in their life what their ambitions and goals are. My due respect and great thanks to them.)

So coming back to MBA, getting a seat for MBA is not as difficult as it was some years ago, considering that institutes offering MBA courses are exploding like serial blasts occurring all over the country.

My question is not 'Why MBA?', but 'What MBA?' This question has come to me many a times. When I was myself a part of this 2 years ago, and also today when my profession requires me to interact with our 'freshers'.

But our 'freshers' have something else to ask... and that is 'What is the package?' I approached nearly 40 MBA students today, some with jobs and some still in search of one (with a good package). Well almost 90% of them did not bother of what the job profile was, which company, what is their learning. They were just worried about the 'package'! It seemed that they were so burdened with the fact that their parents spent plenty of money for their education; that they want to repay it all with interest asap.

Nearly 70% of these students were unable to frame a simple sentence in English, forget judging them on their communication skills. And one Mr. X played some practical jokes on me: I asked him "What is your role in xxx company as a yyy.?", to which he answered, "Yes, I am on company payroll."!!!!!! Yes, I am still alive and in my correct senses yet, though I truly was dumbstruck.

Is anyone worried of how to increase one's employability, of how to make oneself competent for entry and survival in the market, of what profile to go for that will help shape ones career? I would also blame the institutes that are repeatedly failing to produce leaders for tomorrow. Isn't it the duty of the management colleges to instill the correct attitudes in the students who are going to be the future of India? Or should we assume that its all about making money-be it the institutes or the students who graduate from them?

- VAISHALI PARGAONKAR