SBI offers 2-year sabbatical to women staff

 

 

 

 

Women employees of SBI can now take two-year sabbatical leave from work for purposes like children’s education. SBI is likely to extend this facility to single male parents as well. “We have brought in a two-year sabbatical for our women staff in case they want to take it for any purposes like education of their children, taking care of the elderly parents/in-laws,” Arundhati Bhattacharya, the first woman to head SBI, told.

When asked if the scheme, which she had announced immediately after taking over last October, is in place, she replied in the affirmative. Many private sector organisations, including banks such as ICICI Bank, have such provisions in place, but a state-run bank implementing such a provision is probably new. Bhattacharya said the bank was planning to extend the sabbatical leave to single-male parents as well, as the bank needs to be sensitive to their special needs. “At this point we have not done that. But down the line, we might look at single-parents, as well as males who are single-parents. They also need that kind of sensitivity and we should look at that,” she said.