Spinny announces 12 days menstrual leave for its women workforce

Spinny, an online-to-offline retail platform for buying and selling used cars, on Tuesday announced the introduction of 12 days of menstrual leaves for its women workforce. With this step, it joins a growing list of companies that have taken this bold step for their employees.

Earlier, food delivery company Zomato and digital media firm Culture Machine also introduced menstrual leaves for their women employees. These leaves were independent of vacation and sick days.

Since 1992, Bihar government has a policy of two-day extra casual leave for government employees to take time off for periods.

"Women represent 20 percent of our family, a major constraint for many women's professional lives remains dysmenorrhoea. These painful periods afflict at least 20 percent of women, with severe pain interfering with their professional activities," Spinny CEO and Founder Niraj Singh said in a statement.

He added that accordingly, as part of the Menstrual Leave Policy, the company provides 12 leaves annually to its women workforce, apart from the existing leave policy. Moreover, there are no conditions in availing Menstrual Leave, Singh added.

Besides, Spinny has also introduced few other new human resource policies, including work from home (WFH) and family adoption, according to a statement.

Regarding the WFH policy, Spinny was one of the first companies to issue complete work from home policies since March.

Since then, the company declared WFH until December 31, 2020, except for staff members who are involved in field operations, as they do not need to be in a closed space for long periods of time.

"WFH has made our staff more productive while delivering well beyond customers' expectations," the company said.

"For field operations teams, all sanitisation and social distancing norms are undertaken to ensure safety during home test drives and home deliveries the latter equally important in offering safe experiences for customers," Singh said.

Meanwhile, the family adoption policy is aimed at helping staff provide a nurturing environment for orphaned children.

Introduced in partnership with a non-governmental organisation, the comprehensive adoption policy offers financial assistance up to Rs 35,000 for employees adopting a child.

Additionally, such mothers are entitled to 200 days of maternity leave if the child is less than one year, or 100 days if older, while adopting fathers are entitled to seven days' paternity leave, the statement added.