Women employees of State Bank of India can now take two-year sabbatical leave from work for purposes like children’s education. The bank is likely to extend this facility to single male parents as well. The chairman of the bank, Arundhati Bhattacharya, said the bank has brought in a two-year sabbatical for its 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. Many private sector organisations, including banks like 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. Bhattacharya, who had implemented a system of sabbaticals of six years for women during her previous stint as the head of SBI’s investment banking subsidiary SBI Caps, said she had to limit it two years at the bank in line with the policies followed by the government.
