Twitter to offer free breast milk shipping service to its women employees

In a move to make work environment conducive for women, Twitter will now offer free breast milk shipping service for women employees while on business trips. The program will allow mothers to send milk home through FedEx service in a temperature controlled package. The social media company had recently made a public declaration about diversifying its overall workforce by increasing women participation by a scant 1 per cent  by 2016.

Currently, women make about 34 per cent of Twitter’s overall workforce. Lactating working women have always faced inconvenience in pumping breast milk while travelling for work. Often these women are forced to dump out their milk on go. Anchoring its new initiative, Twitter wishes to mitigate this inconvenience for its women employees.

The idea came from Twitter’s “Mommy Mentor” program which seeks to make the transition for pregnant employees and new moms from home to work easier. When the company launched its new service at its recent global sales conference, around nine women signed up for Twitter’s milk shipping service reports Fortune.

Almost a quarter of working mothers are forced to return to work within two weeks after childbirth due to work commitments. According to US research, nearly 65.6 per cent of first time mothers work during pregnancy between 2006 and 2008. Few are forced to join work within three months owing to rigid company policies.

The program is set to benefit these women who find it difficult to balance work with their maternal duty.  “The goal behind launching this program wasn’t about scope or reach- it’s about positive impact for the employees that can and will participate in it,” said Janet Van Huysse, Twitter’s Vice President of diversity and inclusion.

Recently, IBM was the first major company to announce its break milk shipping service followed by Accenture aiming to promote and increase women workforce participation.

Meanwhile, few global companies like Adobe, Microsoft have recently extended their maternity leave policy recently to aide new mothers enjoy parenthood in the righteous way.

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