Every woman and man know what the "It's that time of the month" lament means. A few men might think of it as an unnecessary 'period' of whining that women indulge themselves in, particularly at the work place, but only women know what pain they are going through. Therefore, most ladies, usually put across their status through mood swings or by just disappearing from work.
Instead of letting them voluntarily miss work, Mumbai-based Culture Machine, a digital media company, is giving their women employees an alternate choice: Take an off on the first day of periods. Starting this July, 75 women employees working at the company are entitled to the #FOPLeave every month. The company released a video on their Blush channel on YouTube to announce this new policy.
The video titled First Day of Period Leave | Blush Originals | #FOPLeave has been trending on social media with over four lakh views and counting. The video captures perplexed, astonished and shocked expressions on the faces of women employees who before the news is broken to them are seen whining and complaining about coming to work on the first day. Talking about why they went ahead and decided to implement this rule, Devleena S Majumder, President - Human Resource, says, "This idea just came up couple of weeks ago. A few of us in office were on a coffee break when one girl from my team was complaining about cramps. Other girls who were present related to her problem. This conversation was the first trigger. And since we run Blush, a social media channel focused on women and their empowerment, we thought why not align our core values and policies with the channel. So we decided to go ahead."
It's been just three days since the video has released but there has been a positive response from all fronts. What's more important is the fact that, none of the men working at Culture Machine have raised a question against the policy. "To our pleasant surprise all the men in our office have welcomed this move and have participated in the celebration. In fact, the video was made by a male employee, Aniket, who is the creative director of Blush," adds Devleena.