Startup Founder Shares Employees Heartfelt Reactions To New Menstrual Leave Policy

A Bengaluru-based startup founder has shared why he first decided against introducing a menstrual leave policy but later brought it in after the company had grown. He said the decision changed as the business expanded and employees raised the issue again.

Peeyush Sharma, founder of House of Creators and Viral Vichar, said the idea first came up when he and his co-founders, Jatin and Radhika, had just started building their startup while living in Goa.

In a LinkedIn post, Peeyush recalled that Radhika would lose one or two days every month because of severe menstrual pain, which affected her concentration and productivity even though she often continued working. 

Around the same time, he noticed that Jatin would take sick leave whenever he had a fever.

Peeyush said that if someone has a fever, it is treated as sickness and sick leave is provided. 

He added that women dealing with severe menstrual pain often do not receive the same understanding, even though the biology is the same.

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The founders spent nearly two hours discussing whether to introduce a menstrual leave policy. However, they decided against it at the time. Peeyush said they could not afford it because they had just started building the company and every new policy came with an operational cost they were not ready to take on.

Three years later, after the company had grown, several women employees raised the issue again. A colleague named Nikita formally proposed the policy, and six months ago the company introduced menstrual leave, allowing employees to take up to four menstrual leave days a year without having to provide an explanation.

Peeyush admitted that he was not fully satisfied with the policy. He wrote that four leaves in a year, or one per quarter, for a monthly menstrual activity was not enough and that he had never shared the policy publicly because he felt it was only halfway done.

His thinking changed after speaking with a colleague named Shruti, who told him that a friend working at a large technology company was surprised that a three-year-old startup offered menstrual leave while her employer did not.

Peeyush also shared screenshots from the company's internal WhatsApp group after the policy was introduced. 

HR representative Alaqsha announced that employees could avail up to four menstrual leave days every year with no explanations or awkward messages.

The policy received an overwhelmingly positive response from employees. 

One employee said that in ten years of working across startups, Indian companies and multinational firms, they had never seen a company offer this type of leave. 

Another employee said that while four days were not enough, the company deserved credit for introducing the policy and called it a great start. 

A third employee wrote that the policy perfectly matched the company's culture and said it made them smile.

Reflecting on the response, Peeyush said he realised he had been focusing more on what the policy lacked than on what it already meant to the people it was designed to support. He added that he was not sharing the story because the company had solved the problem, but because sometimes even a small policy can make someone feel seen, and that was a good place to start.