Global provider of workforce management solutions Kronos Incorporated has launched paternity leave for employees in India. The company claims it is a first in the country, even as the policy impacts around 700 employees out of a workforce of more than 800 in the Asia-Pacific region. Company spokespersons say the paternity leave benefit is in line with company values and culture that is “supportive of families”. As per the policy, new fathers can avail four weeks of leave from work.

Engaging with employees Deborah Smith, Global Vice-President (Human Resources and Talent Management), Kronos Incorporated, says: “Employee engagement is critical across the organisation, and we implicitly believe happy employees make happy customers. We started the paternity leave benefit in India early this year. We’re supportive of new fathers being completely off email during those four weeks, for example, unless of their own accord if they wish to log in for certain projects.”

Rajiv Burman, Head of Human Resources, APAC, at Kronos adds: “The average age at our India organisation is about 27 years. There are a fair number availing the benefit, because we have many new fathers among us.”

India trend Maternity leave has been widely promoted as an employee benefit across both private and public sector companies.

However, paternity leave of about 15 days has been available to male employees largely in public sector organisations since the late 90s. But with Facebook introducing its paternity leave policy (as much as 4 months) late last year, there’s growing expectation that other private sector companies in India do so too.

Even among organisations and countries – like the UK, Sweden and Norway – that are known to offer generous paternity leave, the duration varies.

“We conducted a survey in all the countries where we operate and found that a 30-day programme would be the most relevant duration for our employees, and competitive in the market,” Smith reveals, underlining that employee surveys are the basis for some of the company’s key policies or initiatives. Kronos claims the participation rate for its employee engagement surveys is about 92 per cent, while the India engagement score is 79 per cent. In the past, Kronos has enjoyed high scores from one year to the next in the ‘Great Place To Work’ survey.

CSR budget Smith revealed the company spends 15 per cent of its global CSR budget in India, and that Indian employees contribute countless work and personal hours to support its social responsibility initiative.

Smith’s visit to India included looking in on ANK, the company’s CSR initiative.

ANK enables children of migrant labourers to speed up with their learning in a way that they can enter mainstream schooling. From uniforms to furniture and the computer lab, fresh investments are made to provide the children with an enhanced learning experience.

The programme kicked off a couple of years ago, accepting 120 children in a year, now 240 in all, to learn at the Kronos campus.

“Our vision is to educate and nurture the children of migrant labourers so that they can join a full-time workforce in the future and upgrade their standard of living,” Kronos’s Burman shares.

85 per cent of the children have reportedly been readied for mainstream schooling so far under ANK.

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