MUMBAI: In what can be termed as a positive comment on how women are opening up to hard-core shop floor jobs,
Maruti Suzuki India more than doubled its number of
women employees in manufacturing between 2010 and 2013, a period which also includes one of its worst labour unrests. The trend is not limited to the automobile major alone. The number at Cummins, where the presence of women at plant sites was as good as nil at one point, has risen rapidly to about 160 today. This is a direct result of the efforts put in by the company's management to improve gender diversity even on the shop floor. For a pure-play infrastructure group such as Essar, on the other hand, the numbers have gone up less dramatically — from 500 to 600 — in the last three years.
While companies have been driving gender diversity at the work place through various initiatives, it is more challenging to do so at the manufacturing level. "Traditionally, it was thought that for any heavy engineering company, sourcing women for the shop floor would be a challenge. But in recent years, we have been able to increase the number of women employees on the shop floor. In fact, in recent batches of fresh diploma engineers, we have been able to recruit a sizeable number of women," said S Y Siddiqui, COO (administration), Maruti Suzuki India.
Another company that witnessed an increase in the number of women employees by about 40% between 2009 and 2012 is Ambuja Cements. The company had told TOI in an earlier interaction that quite a few women engineers are keen on working on the shop floor even if the plant is situated in a remote area. Consumer products multinational Procter & Gamble India too is focusing on increasing the number of women in its factories, apart from sales and supply chain.
And it's not that women employees are being pampered with cushy tasks. They equally contribute to the so called "hard core" areas like automation, testing and inspection of new components, and also as part of project teams that set up entire assembly lines.
For Maruti Suzuki India, the number has gone up from about 15 to 46 women employees in shop floor-related areas. What has assisted companies in the process is the fact that more girls are opting to study in polytechnics, where they qualify as diploma engineers. Maruti Suzuki has adopted two women ITIs, one at Gurgaon and other at Jhajjar — both in Haryana — so female students who opt for technical and electrical streams get an exposure to industrial practices at its facilities.
Cummins, on the other hand, had to walk an extra mile to bring women on board. "We could hire all our required numbers from 5-10 institutes if we had to hire only male employees, but we had to visit almost 55 colleges and institutes to achieve our desired number of women employees," said Vikas Thapa, HR leader, Cummins megasite, Phaltan.
The number of women working at Cummins's plants has increased from zero in 2009 to 159 in 2012, representing 21% of the total staff today. "It required a lot of effort from our side to convince not only potential candidates but even their parents to change perceptions regarding working on a shop floor. To convince them, we even bring parents of these candidates to visit the plant sites to see where their daughters would work," said Thapa.
However, women employees are treated at par with male colleagues in most companies. Steel-to-energy group Essar persuaded women to work in the second shift so that they can contribute equally to the organization as men do and not get caught in the gender peculiarities of what men can do and women can't. "Women candidates harbour the perception that only men work for infrastructure companies. When we visit engineering colleges, our efforts are aimed at changing this mindset. Since most of our systems are fully automated and computerized, we tell them it's a myth that working for an infrastructure company involves a lot of labour. Because of our efforts, we have seen a 5% increase in women talent in our group over the last few years," said Adil Malia, group president (HR), Essar Group.
Siddiqui of Maruti Suzuki said there is no disparity on gender grounds when it comes to salary. "We make it equally competitive for women through challenging assignments and roles where gender has little or limited role and there is greater focus on team work," said Siddiqui. It also has a lot to do with the different set of skills that women bring to the table. "The way women approach a problem can be different, bringing in a diverse perspective, which can provide better solution to the organization," said Cummins' Thapa.
Not many would disagree with that.
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