This Company's Initiative To have Equal Gender Ratio Has Reaped In Fruits

Women have been denied opportunities for far too long under the premise of protecting them, and have been discouraged from aspiring to anything beyond their reach for their protection. 

Towards this pursuit, the company has created a support structure at its manufacturing facility in Mithapur which enables women to be able to work in three shifts. It is among the first manufacturing facility in Gujarat to undertake such an initiative and maintains a gender ratio of approx. 50:50 in newer manufacturing plants of the company. TO throw deeper light upon this initiative, R.Nanda, CHRO, Tata Chemicals has agreed upon a candid conversation with BW Journalist to elucidate upon it in great detail.

1. What was the company’s vision while encouraging women's employment at the Mithapur manufacturing plant?

As a Tata Group company we are committed to providing equal opportunities in employment and creating an inclusive work environment. We believe societal development remains incomplete without the participation of women. And so, Tata Chemicals is constantly working towards a collective vision of socio-economic growth and development by empowering communities to develop employable skills, cultivate entrepreneurship and sustain livelihoods. 

Women continue to be at the centre of any ecosystem. Our objective was to attract more and more qualified technical women into our workforce at our manufacturing facilities and provide them with opportunities to invest in their own growth and development to enable them to take on higher responsibilities. Besides, having more women on the shop floor has a positive impact on creating a collaborative and respectful general workplace culture. 

In the past women have not been provided with the opportunities for taking lead roles in manufacturing due to a misplaced notion that such jobs would not be to their liking or they may find it difficult to manage shifts and workplace demands or due to concerns relating to their safety and wellbeing, However, the reality was that every generation of fresh talent we were hiring were keen to be provided exposure in all facets of manufacturing and this led us to address this issue from a macro perspective and find solutions to address the existing constraints.

2. What were the initial challenges faced by the company while employing women and how did you overcome them?

The initial challenge that we faced was to ensure that there was a sufficient pipeline of female candidates available to be examined at entry-level recruiting. To address this, the HR team sought out institutions with a larger percentage of female students and collaborated with the Communications team to develop content that highlighted the opportunities and facilities available at the plant and in the township. A simple but crucial change was to include a senior female member on every interview panel to provide comfort to the interviewee and to ensure that deserving female applicants get dropped from the consideration set owing to unconscious biases.

Another key step we took was to spend time involving the recruit's parents and assuring them that their daughter would be safe and secure even though the plant and township are situated in a remote location.

3. Tell us about the support structure created to encourage women to work in three shifts at Mithapur.

Mithapur is the birthplace of Tata Chemicals and has been a conventional manufacturing facility. To bring about a change and increase women hiring, first it was critical to develop an environment that allowed women to work throughout all shifts. 

Before approaching the authorities for the required approvals for women to be deployed across all three shifts, we spent a few months putting in place all of the basic required infrastructure, fine-tuning our systems and processes, reviewing our people policies, and embarking on awareness and sensitization of the teams. 

Due to our consistent efforts, we already have over 50+ women team members at Mithapur and we hope to expand this number each year with special initiatives to ensure women take on more significant responsibilities. Today, Tata Chemicals is among the first facilities in Gujarat and one of the only companies in India manufacturing soda ash that employs women working in all three shifts. 

4. What measures were undertaken to ensure the safety of women during night shifts at the Manufacturing facility?

Ensuring a safe work environment for our employees has always been an important area of focus for us. At Mithapur, we have taken several procedures to safeguard the safety of women working at the plant. We started by adding female security staff across the plant and increasing CCTV surveillance across the manufacturing facility. Women who need to commute late are assured of smooth transit arrangements. We also provided training to line managers to be sensitive to shop floor infrastructure as required to enable women to be productive and reduce stress while at the workplace. 

Also Tata Chemicals has been featured in the “Top 10 Safe Workplaces for Women” as per a nationwide survey conducted by Rainmaker for two years consecutively, and this certainly acts as a testimony towards our commitment. 

5. How is Tata Chemicals helping in Training and Development of women for employability?

When it comes to technical skills and employability, rural sections of the country have had a challenging time. To address this problem, the Tata Chemicals Society for Rural Development conducts various skill development programmes aimed at improving rural employment and entrepreneurship. These efforts also focus on technical training for female trainees, such as forklift driving, industrial electrician, fitter & turner, welder, AC and Refrigerators mechanic, and, driver, etc. Along with this, they are also trained to qualify and acquire heavy motor vehicle driving license.

6. What is the company doing towards Women Rural Entrepreneurship Development?

Tata Chemicals Society of Rural Development (TCSRD), our CSR arm partnered with government programmes to help establish and support self-help group (SHG) clusters with the goal of improving entrepreneurship qualities and skills and ensuring enterprise growth. TCSRD also established the Okhai Center for Empowerment.  In the absence of any other significant earning option for rural women, it became important to provide them with a source of livelihood. Okhai offered these women not only an avenue to preserve their traditional artisanal skills but also the opportunity to earn a living for themselves and be economically and socially independent.