While we receive range of gifts from our loved ones on the occasion of New Year, female employees of a Kolkata-based firm called FlyMyBiz were lucky as the company announced one-day paid period leave every month from January 1, 2019 to its female employees.
So, apart from their regular holidays, female employees will get twelve days additional days off in a year, which they can avail when they have periods (menstruation).
FlyMyBiz CEO, Samyo Datta was quoted by Indian Express as saying, “All the women employees in my company will get one extra leave every month. This means, starting from January 2019, they will have twelve holidays as their period leaves in addition to their other holidays.”
The announcement was a New Year’s gift from the company to the women working there. It has become the first company in Kolkata and the third company in the country who has offered menstrual leave to female employees. Two other companies from Mumbai have this initiative.
There are about 12 female employees in the company and all of them have happily welcomed the move and so have the males, said Datta. He added that this is an attempt of the company to stand by their women on an issue that is still very tabooed.
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The concept of period leaves is not something new. Several countries like Australia and Japan provide such leaves to women employees. Some other countries like Italy and India are slowly accepting and starting it.
Industry experts believe that while this is a positive now, it might turn out to be negative for women in the long run as employers might not be keen to employ as many women.
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