Rising women power on Indian shopfloors

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The hand that rocks the cradle also rules the shopfloor. Rising presence of women in domains that are considered exclusive domains of males is one of the metrics of a fast-maturing workplace and companies such as Tata Motors, JSW Group, Aditya Birla Group, MG Motors and the RPG Group are employing more and more women at the shopfloor level to break gender stereotypes in the manufacturing sector, The Economic Times has stated. Moreover, women are taking up responsibilities across a range of positions from workers to shop floor managers. Joint managing director and chief executive of JSW Steel, Jayant Acharya, disclosed that their new colour-coated steel manufacturing unit in Kashmir’s Pulwama is going to have more women employees than men. The company wants to commission the manufacturing facility by March this year.

“This initiative not only meets our gender diversity objectives but also aims to create an inclusive workplace that will offer opportunities for local women to become economically self-reliant,” Acharya told the newspaper.

But this is not JSW‘s first move in this direction. It has a coil-to-plate and sheet processing line unit in Karnataka’s Ballari district. It is fully managed by a team of almost 60 women engineers. In another of its businesses – JSW Paints – the top management is entrusting the management of colorant lines to women employees, the CEO of the company said.

The Aditya Birla Group is hiring more than half of the engineers who are women. Santrupt Misra, group director, Birla Carbon and Group HR head, ABG said the trigger is attributable to higher levels of automation of the shopfloor and some states tweaking regulations paving the way for inducting women in night shifts. Some companies are responding to these enabling factors such as setting up creches for the kids of the women and proper washrooms for the females.

“A combination of factors is leading to this change. This includes proactive efforts by corporates to have career enablers for women in place, more women joining engineering and STEM courses, greater number of women willing to take up factory jobs amid a societal change,” said Misra.

“The target is to take this up to 25%,” said a spokesperson of Tata Motors where 23% of new recruits for the shop floor are women.

Tata Motors can count over 4,500 women working on the shop floor across all its plants of whom more than 1,850 women are involved in the manufacture of commercial vehicles, trucks and buses. The company’s plant at Pune assembles the sports utility vehicles Harrier and Safari. This location boasts of a workforce comprising 1,600 women in three shifts.

Another company to have a significant number of women on its shopfloor is MG Motor India. The company has gender-neutral job description, revealed HR senior director Yeshwinder Patial. Its SUV Hector is put together by a team where all the members are women.

Though overall the manufacturing sector is dominated by men, some companies are taking firm and decisive steps towards altering that stereotype.

Two and a half years ago, Ola had announced that its two-wheeler factory in Tamil Nadu would be run entirely by women. Eicher Motors and M&M had significant number of women taking up crucial responsibilities on the shopfloor.