Mumbai company gives women employees a paid day off during their period

NEW DELHI: Thanks to social media awareness campaigns, one Indian company recently started giving women employees a

day off

during their period.

Culture Machine

, a digital media company based in Mumbai, uploaded a video this month through its official YouTube channel Blush, which surveyed several women employees' struggles at work during their period.

"I just want to go home", said one employee when asked about what she feels like at work on the first day of her period.

"Sometimes with male bosses you have to be a little discreet, it gets slightly awkward", one woman said regarding asking for leave during her period.

At the end of the video, the company revealed to all their pleasantly shocked women employees that they would be given a day off, with pay, on the first day of their periods.

"I think it's amazing, that you're owning it and you're just like, not sorry for it", said another female employee in the video reacting to the company's decision.

The video also encourages its viewers to click on a link that supports a petition filed by the women of Culture Machine on change.org asking to make this mandatory at all companies.

"This is part of life", said Culture Machine's president of human resources Devleena S. Majumder, explaining the decision.

"The idea was to align the core organisational values to the content that we create" she added, "It's time we face the reality. This is not an embarrassment, this is part of life," Majumder said.

The company's co-founder Venkat Prasad said the decision was to ensure women employees "feel appreciated".

"We wanted to make sure that our colleagues feel appreciated, and also in a society like in India, where the ground reality of women empowerment is still a talk, we wanted to walk the talk," said Prasad, who's also chief technology officer of Culture Machine.

Gozoop, a digital marketing organisation, has also reportedly begun this practice.

Read this story in Marathi