Microsoft has made headlines after announcing a five-month paid maternity leave for female employees in their Kenya office.
The new parental leave policy is quite attractive especially given that most local companies offer a 90 days maternity leave at most.
Currently, a female employee in Kenya is entitled to three months paid leave while their male counterparts get two weeks off. This is barely enough time to bond with the baby. Also, new mothers barely have enough time to learn about motherhood and baby care and this may explain the rise and reliance on online communities for moms.
The new maternity break policy increases to 20 weeks while new fathers will get six weeks paid paternity leave. This extension is still new to a developing country like Kenya but chances are that it will gain momentum with time.
In a statement, the giant tech firm also announced that the new maternity leave policy would apply to all its East, West and Central Africa Microsoft offices.
The policy should be applauded especially since Microsoft has once again proved that it has a special interest in career women. This is because it is also among tech companies that offer fertility benefits to its female employees.
One of the biggest problems facing women on maternity breaks is that companies may breach the leave. Often, some companies view maternity and paternity breaks as a burden to the company owing to the fact that the company is forced to hire temporary workers or overwork other employees.
In some extreme cases, some mothers report having been laid off after taking a maternity leave. One such mother talked to Victoria Rubadiri on her weekly show dubbed ‘Victoria’s Lounge’. In the episode dubbed ‘Job Loss’, the middle-aged woman talked of how she lost her job shortly after completing her maternity leave. She is just one among many women who have suffered the same fate.
According to Microsoft, the package is will ensure that all parents get ample time to bond with the new addition(s) to their family. This is regardless of whether the baby arrives through birth or adoption.
Microsoft is not alone in this since there are a few other companies that offer over 3 months of maternity leave in Kenya and they include Safaricom Limited which gives new mothers 4 months. Another one is Nestle which gives female employees a minimum of 14 weeks paid maternity leave. The employees also have the right to extend their maternity leave up to six months.
The situation is way better for female employees working with some giant U.S firms. In 2015, Microsoft announced that new mothers could take up to 20 weeks paid leave up from 12 weeks. In the same year, Adobe Systems Inc., a software company, extended the maternity leave period by doubling it. New mothers working for the company now receive 26 weeks of fully paid leave up from 12 weeks. Netflix also announced that employees can take up to a year of paid maternity or paternity leave after the birth or adoption of a child. This also comes with the autonomy to choose whether to return to work as a full or part-time employee.
That’s not all. The good news keeps coming.
The tech giant is also introducing a new family-caregiver leave benefit giving employees up to 4 weeks of paid leave to care for an immediate family member with a serious health condition.
Amr Kamel, the General Manager for Microsoft West East and Central Africa (WECA) stated that the company regards its staff as the ‘lifeblood of our brand’, and that highest priority is placed on supporting them in various aspects of their lives, including outside the workplace.
The move by Microsoft is definitely a game changer in the local scene. Moving forward, we can only hope that other companies will consider revising their maternity leave policy such that it favors new mothers and fathers.
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