The new policy is an addition to the Bengaluru-based company’s recent initiatives towards driving better inclusivity within the organisation. The firm, which
entered the unicorn club last year with a valuation of over a billion dollars, is also looking to allow employees to include same-sex and live-in partners under their insurance coverage.
“Over the past six months or so, we have been revisiting our policies through a lens of inclusivity and changing them, or adding new ones, when required,” Ashish Singh, chief human resources officer at the Bengaluru-headquartered company which has 1,700-odd employees in India, told ET. “With this new policy, we want to support employees going through gender transition and ensure they have the required time off.”
The gender reassignment surgery will also be covered by insurance, Singh said.
With this new move, Meesho joins other companies like Cisco, IBM, Amazon, Accenture, Godrej and Sapient that have similar policies.
Diversity experts, however, say there is still a long way to go.
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“It’s a year-long process, if not more, of ‘transitioning’ from one gender to another, starting from psychological counselling and hormonal treatments to the different stages of surgery and recovery,” said Shachi Irde, a consultant at Sisa Consulting, which helps companies define their DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) strategy.
While leave is only one part of it, organisations can walk the talk towards inclusion for trans employees by driving awareness among colleagues on being more accepting of employees’ new gender identities and using the right pronouns, Irde said.
