ICICI Bank will now let women employees work from home for one year

ICICI Bank on Monday announced the 'iWork@home' initiative on the eve of International Women's Day, where women employees will now be allowed to work from home for a year, which can be extended.

The programme has a three-level security protocol which ensures that only the concerned employee is able to access the system. The second initiative is meant for women managers with young children up to the age of 3 years where the bank will foot the travel and stay cost of their children and the caregivers.

The women employees will be provided access to the required operating system in a manner which is safe and secure to create an office environment in which they can work seamlessly. This will be initially for the period of up to one year. ICICI bank has developed the technology platform with the help of IIT Delhi students, said an Economic Times (ET) report.

Chanda Kochhar, Managing Director at ICICI Bank in the report said that they wanted to create a stronger support system for women to ensure that women do not leave the workforce at the key stage of their life. This is the reason why they decided to use technology to make life simpler for women managers.

The bank said that it will implement the facility across several core functions and at the same time ensure that there is no loss of productivity.

Kochhar further said that the system has the potential to become a highly scalable programme and will allow women managers to avail themselves of the facility for long periods of time.

The bank has also added designs such as a unique facial recognition technology as an added security measure.

Besides this, Kochhar said the bank also offers six months of maternity leave, 36 days of paid child care leave which is available each year for mothers and single fathers till the child attains the age of two years. The bank also offers 180 days of fertility leave for employees who are seeking to undergo treatment for fertility, and 36 days of paid adoption leave for women employees and single fathers.

In addition, the bank also tries to accommodate transfer requests made by employees on account of marriage, medical reasons or any personal emergency. The bank has also launched a Quick Response Team (QRT) to respond to women employees, if they are in distress while commuting, says Kochhar.