पत्रिका जगत Positive Journalism
Jaipur, 08 March, 2019: Ashok Leyland, flagship of the Hinduja Group, and one of the largest commercial vehicle manufacturers in India, hosted a series of events to commemorate Women’s Day. These events were aimed towards achieving gender equality, empowering women and elevating them economically, socially, and culturally. The events ranged from a roundtable interaction with senior leaders from organizations, Breast Cancer Awareness workshop, cooking without fire workshop, behavioural Intervention by Evam Team, financial planning workshop, fair with stalls by women entrepreneurs, and a music concert.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. N.V. Balachandar, President- HR, Communication & CSR, Ashok Leyland Ltd., said, “While the success for any automotive company is staying ahead of the curve on technology, getting the right set of talent who can create a culture of innovation, and who are execution focused is imperative. Research shows that women demonstrate more transformational leadership and drive the business agenda with empathy, discipline and resilience. Hence, equal opportunity coupled with women’s empowerment are cornerstones of sustainable and fair development. Currently, at Ashok Leyland we have increased entry level participation of women in our workforce to about 35 %. Simultaneously, we are also working on ways to increase their participation in the higher levels of leadership too. A combination of these initiatives will enable us build a future which provides meaningful opportunities for women across levels.”
Continuing on the topic, Ms. Uma Rao, VP Human Resource, Ashok Leyland Ltd., who is passionate about the diversity and inclusion agenda, said, “The changing business scenario in auto sector and thereby of Ashok Leyland opens up challenges of meticulous execution, customer centricity through relationship management, higher aesthetic value of design & products and superior technology. The automotive industry is highly male dominated, which can be very intimidating for women to participate. Hence, we have initiated some beneficial and unique steps to address this scenario and to create a gender inclusive workplace accepting of all diversity. For instance, under our unique BLESSING scheme at Pantnagar plant, a first-of-its-kind girl’s hostel is inside the campus to encourage more women workers on the shop floor. The program has already achieved employment ratio of 22% of girl employees in plants. At Ashok Leyland, we seek to leverage the power of gender diversity to meet the challenges of providing the best mobility solutions.”
Having taken various measures to enable more women to join the workforce, Ashok Leyland calibrated the impact through a survey which shed light on some very interesting perceptions – 1/3 each of the efforts were towards, engagement, career development, and inclusive offerings versus data from comparable benchmarked companies whereas about 2/3 efforts were towards inclusive offerings and the remaining 1/3 split between career development and engagement.
Building on the belief of gender diversity and wider inclusion, Ashok Leyland has engaged extensively with industry bodies thru dialogues and discussions to learn on the best and the next practices. With the same intent, it hosted a Roundtable interaction with senior leaders from organizations in collaboration with WILL Forum led by Ms Poonam Barua, in Chennai. The companies that participated in this are : TCS, Michelin, Ford Services, Infosys, Capgemini, Sutherland, L&T, Caterpillar, Great Lakes Institute of Management, HCL, Pfizer among others and it was a very fruitful learning and exchange of ideas and successful practices.
At the roundtable event, the leaders expressed their views on the concept of equality in the workplace as a critical component of good governance, innovative leadership, and an open cultural environment in the organization and not as gender-specific issue. They were of a belief that there is a disparity in the current state of leadership, in corporate India. Hence, there is a significant need to lead the way in improving gender equality, particularly in corporate boardrooms and top-management positions, for better decision making and strategic overview of company performance and rewards to the stakeholders. The attendees were in accord that having more women leaders will bring greater strategic vision, ethics and integrity, customer orientation, quality decision making, talent development, resource optimization, and risk management to the top-management of companies. Such initiatives, gives opportunities to industry leaders to examine the ways to remove barriers and accelerate progress for gender equality, encourage investment in gender-responsive social systems, and build services and infrastructure that meet gender equality.
