Volvo Car India introduces “Family Bond”- a gender-neutral parental leave policy

Volvo Car India today announced “Family Bond”: its gender-neutral parental leave policy. This policy, in sync with Volvo’s global directives will now allow male employees to avail up to 24 weeks (120 working days) of parental leave at 80% of total salary. Women employees will continue to avail 26 weeks of fully paid maternity leave as per the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017.  The Policy applies to all regular salaried (on-roll full-time) employees in India who have completed a minimum of 1 year employment with the company. This includes all mothers and fathers, same sex parents, parents to adopted and foster children or through surrogacy. There are no limitations on age or marital status.  “Volvo has a heritage of being an employee friendly company. We believe that both partners should share the joys of parenthood and be available to each other while bringing up children. It is because of this that one of the essential features of our new parental policy is that male employees can spread this privilege over a three-year period. Our new policy is a big step in fostering an inclusive and diverse culture by enabling both the parents to have an equal opportunity to be with