For multinational organization, it is very important to adopt international organizational culture as it helps them to keep step in every country. Following the same principle and boosting the skills of female, Telenor has decided to adopt six month paid maternity leave policy as being adopted at international level. This six month policy will be adopted by Telenor as a minimum standard at its 13 markets across the globe.
The main advantage of the policy will be taken by the Asian employees as the current practices are operative in the European market, however, in near future newly proposed initiative will be launched for European market.
This new policy will be effective from January 1, 2016. At present, 36% of the Telenor is consists of women. At present, Telenor has 33,000 employees around the globe. This decision will have a great effect on the Telenor’s Asia operations as it will keep the women staff with Telenor because the women will be given payment leave.
President and CEO of Telenor Group, Sigve Brekke, said, “This is about strengthening Telenor’s competitiveness in the markets where we operate. In order to do that, we rely on attracting the best talent from diverse backgrounds. We know that a diverse workforce drives innovation and better performance. With the goal of ensuring that our organization better reflects the world we live in, and in order to attract, retain, and develop female leadership talent, we are instituting a minimum six-month paid maternity leave as standard for our employees everywhere we operate. This will represent a significant difference in markets such as Thailand and India, where local regulations require only three months of maternity leave. We consider it a highly strategic move, both from a societal and a business perspective.”
Telenor leadership has of the point of view that diversity in the workplace opens the door of advantages and opportunities and ultimately improved the financial performance of the enterprise. According to recent business study: “companies in the top quartile of diversity are more likely to have returns above their national industry medians.”
