India Inc Bringing More Women to Factory Floor to Bridge Gender Gap
An increasing number of manufacturing companies in India in sectors such as mining, metals, automobile, and heavy engineering are looking at inducting more women on the shopfloor.
Companies such as Tata Steel, Vedanta, MG Motor India, TVS Motors, and Schaeffler India have increased the representation of women in factories in the last one year amid a proactive effort to widen the talent pool.
A lot of the impetus came from the pandemic as many highly strenuous roles — which were so far a male bastion — have been automated, making way for women who can manage them. However, companies are looking to induct women even in job profiles traditionally seen as “impossible” for women, thus challenging gender stereotypes.
Tata Steel, which has women working across the ecosystem from mines to manufacturing locations including shop floors, has been increasing the representation of women in roles such as officers, supervisors, heavy earth moving machinery (HEMM) operators, stacker-cum-reclaimer (SCR) operators, and pilots. The steel major aims to have a 25% diverse workforce by 2025.
“Manufacturing advances in automation are shifting many jobs on the production floor away from task-based physical work. However, we want to look at all roles that are perceived as impossible for women to be a part of and challenge gender stereotypes,” said Jaya Singh Panda, Chief Diversity Officer, Tata Steel.
The company has been working towards enabling all shift operations for women and looking for the necessary government regulations.
“For our B shift (2pm to 10pm) operations, we ensured female supervision, GPS enabled secure pick and drop services, arrangements for amenities such as canteens, restrooms,” he said.
MG Motor India – which has women in automotive operations like press shop, welding, brazing, spray painting, assembly activities, car testing on tester line and quality checks – has increased female representation to 37% in 2022, up from 18% pre-pandemic, and aims for 50% women in its factories by next year.
“Research shows that diverse companies are the most profitable,” said Rajeev Chaba– MD, MG Motor India. “Several operations which required manual interventions like pushing a car on the trolley have been automated and can be carried out in just a push of a button, giving women more roles to choose from,” Chaba said.
Diversified miner Vedanta, which increased the representation of women in its overall workforce by more than 10% compared to pre-pandemic levels, has a strong focus on expanding participation of women in mining and exploration and to increase the number of women on the shop floor level, which was earlier considered a male bastion, said Madhu Srivastava, Group CHRO, Vedanta.
“Women are hardworking and sincere which directly increases productivity. They show more empathy and make very good people leaders,” she said.
Inducting more women on the shopfloor also widens the talent pool at a time when there is shortage of skilled labour, said top company officials.
In 2020, auto component manufacturer Schaeffler India leveraged the government’s National Employability Enhancement Scheme (NEEM) scheme, which aims at producing skilled labourers, to hire 200 women in its manufacturing plants. It increased women employee strength by 200% at its Hosur plant and by 50% at its Talegaon plant in the last two years. “Today 17% of the total plant workforce at Talegaon and 11% at Hosur are women,” said Santanu Ghoshal, VP-HR & CHRO. This year, the company is focussing on hiring more women at its Savli plant.
“The prime objective to introduce women on the shop floor was to leverage the availability of a diverse talent pool and improve families’ livelihood in rural communities,” said a spokesperson at TVS Motor, which aims to increase women’s representation from 15% to 25% in the next few years.
At Schaeffler India the induction of women proved successful for the company as quality-related complaints due to visual defects reduced dramatically, said Ghoshal.
Few states have been providing relaxations, along with certain conditions, to the statutory provisions to allow women being engaged in night shifts in factories, and such steps have enabled companies to induct more female workers.
“Many companies are proactively pitching to the respective state governments to allow women workers and employees to work at factories and more particularly in night shifts to meet increased industry demands” said Anshul Prakash, Partner, Employment Labour & Benefits at law firm Khaitan & Co. “Even during the pandemic companies have been making efforts to enhance or create the necessary infrastructure at manufacturing units to make it more suitable to engage women for work at factories” he said.
Rituparna Chakraborty, executive vice president, Teamlease Services is of the view that a major driver for manufacturing companies to hire more women is to make the workplace more “harmonious”. “Manufacturing companies want to bring more women to the assembly line to create more harmony,” she said.
#womenindia #womenindiatv #womensupportingwomen #womeninbusiness #femaleentrepreneurs #growthmindset #buildalifeyoulove #girlboss #girlpower #womanownedbusiness #GirlBossesUnite #FemaleFounders #Entrepreneurship #Entrepreneur #BrandYourBusiness
