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Imagine for a second, you are the fastest person on the planet. But every time you try to enter a race, your request is denied. Living with the frustration of knowing your abilities are being under-utilized or just flat out ignored. Similarly in many offices, there exists an invisible barrier or a ‘glass ceiling’ that women face daily. It is the role of your HR policy to ensure there are no such obstructions, to maintain legal compliance of workplace safety for women.

So how then does one ensure there are no ‘glass ceilings’?

1. Receptiveness You don’t need a corporate attorney to understand the importance of being heard. It’s necessary to understand that everyone’s voice has to be heard. The responsibility falls on managers and senior staff to create an open atmosphere where opinions can be shared regardless of discrimination on basis of gender or race.
2. Empowerment Encourage your employees and let them know they are valued. Women should be motivated to put themselves forward. But for this, there first need to be unbiased opportunities available in your organization. Positive encouragement leads to self empowerment!
3. Timings As a part of corporate law it is necessary to ensure shift timings fall well within the set time frame for women employees. What this means, is that female factory employees should not be made to work at night times, out of safety concerns. If you do find yourself using night shifts, be sure to provide safe and reliable transport for your female staff.
4. Maternity Benefits To maintain legal compliance with the Indian Maternity Benefit Act, ensure you are providing female workers the following:
   • Paid maternity leave of 26 weeks
   • Paid maternity leave of 12 weeks for adoptive mothers who adopt a child under three months old, and for commissioning mothers (using another woman’s embryo)
   • Companies may also offer work from home benefits, after the 26 weeks are up
   • For organizations larger than 50 people, it is necessary to provide employees with a nursery facility and to permit mothers to visit the facility 4 times in a day.
   It is the employer’s responsibility to educate their employees on maternity benefits.
5. Equal Wages Salary should be paid on basis of talent and effort. There should be absolutely no gap in salaries on basis of employee’s gender. Any such discrimination goes against corporate law and can be taken to court.

For more information on legal compliance of corporate law and useful free legal advice, be sure to visit the Lawyered site