THERE IS A pending bill in Congress that will increase the maternity leave benefit of female employees or workers up to 105 days from the current 60 days allowed by law.
The proposal, however, drew adverse reaction from the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) headed by Acting President Sergio Ortiz-Luis. They warned that if the expanded maternity leave bill becomes a law, employers will be compelled to choose and hire male employees over females, and they claim it will reduce female employment in the next five years.
We find this issue interesting because we previously worked with a conservative commercial bank whose personnel policy at that time was more inclined to hiring male employees rather than females precisely to avoid maternity leaves.
However, when we were transferred from Iloilo to a new branch of the bank that opened in Naga City in the Bicol Region, we asked for leeway in hiring our new employees without necessarily prioritizing males over females.
We then decided to recruit female employees and hired four to handle transactions at the teller’s windows, with some emphasis on intelligence and good looks to attract new depositors to the bank. It worked!
But what we did not foresee was that after a few months we also attracted four young gentlemen in town who come everyday to fetch our lady tellers after the day’s work. It did not take long when our tellers got married.
To make the story short, we later ended up with helping to count cash during busy transaction days like on Mondays or after holidays because one or two of our girl tellers are on maternity leave.
But in fairness to women employees, our experience as a previous manager in the bank was that we found them more attentive to details. They are diligent in their work and have less extracurricular activities or vices when compared to their male counterparts.
After our Bicol assignment, we were transferred to become Manager of two Visayan branches, and finally returned to Iloilo to head the branch where we started working in the bank. We believe that our experience in hiring pretty front liners at the teller’s window always worked well for us.
We have retired from banking for some time and now find that there is a changing trend of more women than men employed in the banks. It is also pleasing to note that many bank branches and departments are now headed by female managers.
Women workers are smarter than what the employer’s group or ECOP think. They are not only hardworking but those who are married, we noted nowadays, are planning their families. It is our stand that they deserve the increased maternity leave benefits under the new law when approved.
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Historical Quote of the Week
“The first Filipino woman in our country to win the Cultural Heritage Award – Magdalena Jalandoni of Jaro, Iloilo City.” (For comments or re-actions, please e-mail to jnoveracompany@yahoo.com)/PN
