PayPal's 'Paid Leave Policies' define how companies can guarantee work-life balance to their employees

Most of you would be quite jealous to know about PayPal's new paid policies.

By enhancing its caregiving paid leave policies, it has given its Indian employees the provision of taking more than double the current maternity leaves (from 12 to 26 weeks) and double the paternity leave (from 5 to 10 days).

The company has also introduced paid adoption leave of 16 weeks for its female employees, while the paternity policy has been adjusted to include adoption leave within its mandate.

The move, the company claims, is part of PayPal’s efforts to ensure a balanced approach to work and life among its employees in the country.

Jayanthi Vaidyanathan, ‎Director, Human Resources, PayPal said - “At PayPal, we believe that fostering an open, diverse and innovation-driven culture is essential for our employees to be at their creative best. As part of this effort, our extended caregiving policies not only enable women to come back to work after having children, but also offer a supportive, family-friendly environment for both parents."

She added - "We are aware that enabling an inclusive workplace also includes helping fathers spend more time with their newborn children and our enhanced paternity leave, along with the newly introduced adoption leave policy, reflects our understanding of the evolving family dynamics among our employees.”

The extended caregiving leave policies are effective from January 1, 2017. At a time when Indian companies have been facing flak for lacking mandatory leave policies for employees, PayPal's caregiving policies comes as a ray of hope that several others will follow suit and make their workplace an employee-friendly space.