Women play a special role in everyone’s life as a daughter, wife, mother, or friend.
Realising the importance of the Eleanor Roosevelt quote “A woman is like a tea bag; you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water”, PNB MetLife endeavors to empower women everywhere.
I recently interviewed Vijaya Nene, Head of Operations and Support, PNB MetLife, a woman of substance having great ideas for the future of women, where she emphasized the focus on “how you do it” and not “what you do” followed at PNB MetLife.
She spoke about how “Safety for women at the workplace” has been their top priority, in a society were women leave jobs due to these issues.
Recognised among the Top “100 Best Company for Women” consecutively in 2016 & 2017 by the prestigious Working Mother and AVATAR group reflects their emphasis on safety at workplace and creating a healthy environment for women, taking measures by various policies and programs their women workforce increasing from 22% in 2014 to 33% in 2017 .
One outstanding initiative is the 26 weeks maternity leave commencing eight weeks prior to the expected delivery date with an additional 30 days in case of medical exigency and six weeks in event of a miscarriage.
Having adapted themselves with the current time, PNB MetLife grants 12 weeks leave in surrogacy or legal adoption cases.
Counseling sessions, “Family Matters” conducted for expecting mothers ensure stress-free maternity break preparing them for their new role and still achieve their personal and professional goals without the guilt of neglecting their child and family.
Crèche facilities/daycare centers at discounted rates at various places and better ways for resuming in terms of work from home, timings etc., their “Returnship” program focuses at women returning to a career after a break.
To keep women at par with know-how the “POWER” program was recently launched, aiming at developing and strengthening leadership capabilities of women by providing training and fostering mentor/mentee relationships between identified women employees and their leaders.
Their Diversity & Inclusion Ambassadors team, a network of male and female employees spreads messages sharing feedback of women colleagues and addressing them with expert advice.
On Women’s Day “Women of Excellence Workshops” are organized which focuses on various important issues ensuring work-life integration.
About the future of equality in the workspace, she said that PNB MetLife has a vision of 50:50 of a male and female workforce.
With a message of “Believe in yourself and stay true to your dreams”, a special referral scheme was launched on International Women’s Day where earnings increase if employees refer women employees.
She ended the interview with a Hillary Clinton quote “Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world”
