Swiggy introduces two-day paid monthly period time-off for women delivery agents

By: WE Staff | Thursday, 21 October 2021

Swiggy, a food delivery firm has introduced a two-day paid monthly period time-off policy for its female delivery partners. The delivery partners will receive a minimum earnings guarantee upon opting for the time-off.

In a blogpost, Swiggy said it had onboarded its first female delivery partner in Pune in 2016 and has since then, it has been striving to build inclusivity and diversity across the platform with a commitment towards increasing the number of women delivery partners in Swiggy’s delivery fleet.

“To bring about necessary changes, we ensure to stay cognizant of the challenges our women delivery partners face, especially with respect to access and safety. Creating an environment that encourages women to consider delivering with Swiggy is a priority, and here are some of our recent efforts in that direction,” it added.

Talking about the policy, Swiggy said discomfort from being out and about on the road while menstruating is probably one of the most underreported reasons why many women don’t consider delivery to be a viable gig.

“To support them through any menstruation-related challenges, we’ve introduced a no-questions-asked, two-day paid monthly period time-off policy for all our regular female delivery partners. This industry-first initiative gives our female DEs the option to voluntarily take time off during their menstrual cycle and be eligible for a minimum earnings guarantee during that time,” it added.

Swiggy has about 1,000 women delivery partners among 200,000 delivery partners.

“Measures like ‘safe zones’ and capping delivery hours at 6 PM for female delivery partners were implemented. However, we realised that this move limited true inclusivity, while also restricting female partners from delivering during one of the most lucrative slots-the dinner peak. We’re changing that by bettering our security processes.” it said.

Swiggy added that starting with Bengaluru, where it has the highest number of women delivery partners, it is opening up dinner slot deliveries.

“It will be extended to other cities after we complete training our partners there. Some of the measures we have in place include robust virtual safety training modules that cover situational training, Swiggy SOS-emergency support usage guidelines, and important safety dos & don’ts,” it said.