‘Companies need policies that won’t deny parents time for their families’

Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook and founder of leanin.org, says companies need policies that will enable parents work and be there for their families.

Sandberg said this in a post on her organisation’s Facebook’s page.

She spoke about the family friendly policies at Facebook, explaining she took time off during the birth of her children, and a bereavement leave her husband died.

Sandberg said no one should have to face what she described as “trade off” – having to choose work or family over the other.

“We need public policies that make it easier for people to care for their children and aging parents and for families to mourn and heal after loss,” she said.

“I’m really proud of Facebook’s commitment. Our parental leave policy is one of the best in the nation. We offer four months of paid time off for new moms and dads for childbirth and adoption.

“Our commitment to supporting parents starts at the very top – Mark Zuckerberg made sure our parental leave policy covered both moms and dads long before I got to Facebook and led by example by taking parental leave after Max was born.

“Today, we’re taking another step. We’re extending bereavement leave to give our employees more time to grieve and recover and will now provide paid family leave so they can care for sick family members as well.”

Nigeria’s law on parental leave consists mostly of maternal leave that is a whole month and two weeks short of article 183 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which stipulates 18 weeks of maternity leave.

Nigeria is yet to domesticate this stipulation leaving women scrambling to search for adequate child care as they return to work in an economy that mostly needs a home to have two sources of revenue.

Pregnancy and child care cause women who work to face discriminatory in their offices. Women in Nigeria, especially those working in private organisations, lack adequate maternity protection and are continually displaced or dismissed from their places of work due to pregnancies, childbirth and related issues.