A Brief case study:
Prerna has been working in a multinational company for past 7 years. She joined the company through campus placement as a management trainee in finance department. She had seen different phases of her professional and personal growth in 7 years time span spent within the company. Professionally, she has grown from management trainee to the senior manager position. Similarly on personal front from being a spinster, she is married woman now for past 5 years. Things have been a cakewalk for her in the organisation so far.
However, things changed for her when she decided to extend her family. After knowing about her pregnancy things started becoming bitter for her. In performance appraisal she did not get good ranking despite contributing best to her work. She has been sidelined from new or existing projects as her absence for coming 6 months from work will be considered as major absence and there is no surety that she would be back to work after maternity leave. With these doubts in mind her superior are not involving her more into crucial work and abandoning her from the responsibilities which she could easily carry on. She felt and observed every step treatment towards her because of her pregnancy She decided to stay in the present organisation till she rejoin back from maternity break, and decided to take a change in her job afterwards.
This short case study left us with questions popping up in our mind .
Would Prerna decision to move on to another firm will give her stability and progress in the career?
Is this situation just happening with Prerna in the existing firm or is it the same story which woman labour force faces once they decide to have family and they proceed on Maternity leave.
This question remains unanswered till the time an analysis is done to determine whether this new amendment in maternity leave an actual benefit to the women labour force?
Is this benefit actually empowering women?
Let’s have a look at certain figures which gives us more clarity to ascertain something .
According to a survey conducted by TEAMLEASE , with the amendments in maternity leave benefit following has been observed
Job Loss
1.6 – 2.6% job loss across 10 sectors.
A comparative analysis of maternity benefit act 2017 with the previous act can be explained as:
Maternity benefit act 2017 |
Previous act |
|
Previous lave duration was for 12 Weeks.
No such provision
No such provision
No such provision
No such provision |
The above differences showcase the Maternity leave conditions of the maternity benefit act 2017. This is certainly true that we have stood exemplary in the world after making it mandatory to have maternity leave for 26 weeks even in private organisations. Now few more questions arises?
Would this new law helpful for women to join the workplace?
Has the situation really improved?
Is the workplace a better place for new and existing mother’s with applicability of Standard maternity leave policy?
Lets have a look at the following challenges which are faced by women after introduction of new maternity benefit act 2017.
1. Job loss in small and medium enterprises: Many larger companies have shown a welcome gesture to this law but fear prevails for small and medium size enterprises, reason being that 6 months absence from work results in loss of productivity.Such small companies have 1 or 2 position for a particular skill, employer find it easy to have a replacement instead keeping it vacant for 6 months.
2. Following Maternity Leave guidelines as per the maternity leave policy is a costly affair for medium and small enterprises as the cost of having a crèche facility in case of 50 + employees etc . is an additional cost which will be borne by employer in india, therefore for them it proves out to be costly affair.
3. Defeat the purpose of gender diversit : Companies prefer hiring male candidate in a certain age group as employers have their own doubts to hire female force which might go on pregnancy leave in the near future. So employer prefers hiring male candidates. This further deepens the rift in widening the gender diversity.
4. Career Break: It is uncertain most of the time that woman work force would return back to work after the maternity leave. Employers put a big question mark on hiring of female counterparts since with leaving the organisation after availing maternity leave, the initial investment of the company in terms of training etc. goes waste.
1. Government should bear some costs towards the Maternity allowance cost and it should not be the sole responsibility of the employer.
2. Paternity leave mandates must also be followed like maternity leave so that the gap between hiring a male candidate over the female candidate can be bridged.
3. Promotion of career progression for women who rejoin after the maternity break.
4. Allowing companies to offset any additional cost burden against their company social responsibility spending that is now required by the law.
5. Maternity leave rights are still not applicable to the unorganised sector for example agriculturist, contractual labour, construction workers etc. It must be noted that vast majority of woman workforce are employed in unorganised sector.
6. Employing the Maternity leave entitlements will not be difficult with larger companies but smaller companies might not be able to bear the extended cost and can stop hiring more women employees.