Eli Lilly and Company (India) Pvt. Ltd, global healthcare firm has announced new maternity leave plan, which is extension from 18 weeks to 26 weeks. This move is taken by the company to support women workforce of the company. Lilly has built this policy to advance career of women employees alongside their personal commitments.

Lily also allows its employees to opt for a sabbatical leave without pay for up to a year. This option will provide mothers or employees who need to dedicate additional time for the care of a family member including children to bridge the gap of an unavailable support system.

 Anant Garg, Director, Human Resources, Eli Lilly & Company India, says,“Lilly is committed to having a diverse workforce and policies that empower employees to effectively manage their work-life balance. Focused initiatives have been introduced to ensure women get equal opportunity to compete, perform and nurture their careers. Lilly’s women-centric programs such as the special gender intelligence workshops for supervisors, regular leadership interactions and a women’s network (LWIN) for collective learning and networking has played a critical role in building strong female leaders, and an engaged female workforce.”He adds, “This new maternity leave policy will enable mothers to spend additional time with their babies and also be able to transition back to work effectively. It is another step in our overall effort to provide the best working environment supported by policies that help our women employees and enable them to continue their leadership journey with Lilly.”

He adds, “This new maternity leave policy will enable mothers to spend additional time with their babies and also be able to transition back to work effectively. It is another step in our overall effort to provide the best working environment supported by policies that help our women employees and enable them to continue their leadership journey with Lilly.”

 India poses a unique challenge when it comes to recruiting, retaining women talent. While the statistics don’t really paint a nice picture, the Act surely gives a head-start to what needs to be done. Nearly 45% Indian women say their decision to leave their jobs was strongly influenced by the prevalent notion that women must take care of the household while men must work and provide for the family. The labour force participation rate for women is falling, from 37% in 2004-05 to 29% in 2009-10. In the rural areas, the percentage of women workers is 25%, while in the urban areas, it is just 15%. Out of 323 total executive directorship positions on the Bombay Stock Exchange, just eight are held by women.

Organisations which already provide 6-month paid maternity leave include HCL, Flipkart, Microsoft, P&G, Nestle, Infosys, RIL, Tata Group, among others. Now, India has reached the third position in terms of the number of weeks for maternity leave after Canada and Norway where it is 50 weeks and 44 weeks, respectively