Gurgaon, March 11, 2024: Speaking at Godrej ki Shakti, a unique celebration of women’s in manufacturing organised by Godrej Consumer Products Limited at a manufacturing unit in Malanpur, Madhya Pradesh, Nisaba Godrej, executive chairperson, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd, emphasised the importance of family and organisational support as the key to advance women participation in workplaces. “The strongest support comes from families who will tell women to go out and work, who will reassure them that they will share in childcare, and who will let them marry men who will share in the housework,” she said in an address to the workforce and their families.
At this event, senior Godrej leaders recognised women employees across factory functions for breaking stereotypes, and paid tribute to families, educationists, and officials, who came together to support the growing cohort of women in the GCPL workforce at Malanpur. The celebration focused on the importance of allyship and the involvement of a broader social ecosystem that is required for accelerating women’s economic progress. It emphasised the Godrej Industries Group’s commitment to inclusive factories and marks the commencement of a major push against systemic barriers to women’s employment on sites and shop floors across the group.
Just 1.6 million women currently work in India’s manufacturing sector, making up about 20 percent of the sector’s workforce, according to the Centre for Economic Data and Analysis at Ashoka University. The number has stagnated over the last two decades.
The Malanpur GCPL plant currently reports at-par industry standards for women’s representation, but leaders are aiming to push ahead and raise standards for representation in the workforce, setting targets for gender-balanced hiring as well as hiring of persons with disabilities for upcoming greenfield expansions, including the factory at Malanpur. This is part of a broader mission of inclusivity, which includes training, hiring, and promoting local talent from the Central-West region, while also enhancing regional and generational diversity in plant operations, with a view to defining best-in-class manufacturing practices.
At the event, employees’ conversation with Godrej included questions about how she was thinking about the broader problem of bringing women into the historically male-dominated manufacturing sector. “The psychological barrier that women can’t accomplish some functions will crumble if we all work together,” she said. “Some of our colleagues are keeping the plant running today so that we can gather here. We have to build an infrastructure that enables women to work in the toughest jobs, and that includes garnering the support of our allies and colleagues, both in the workplace and at home.”
To young employees, she said: “You will not love your job every day. The night shift will be hard. Leaving your beloved child at home to come to work will be hard. But you are going to have a long career, and it takes grit to get through the ups and downs. Keep that grit, because on the other side of this struggle is financial independence, learning, friendship, and freedom.”
At the event, while some of the plant’s women employees, in both white-collar and blue-collar functions, said that they had faced opposition to their career from parents and in-laws, many dwelled on the fact that families had backed their education, and many also said that fathers, mothers and husbands had defied inherited social norms and supported their careers and this is what made the difference in them succeeding and thriving in the space of manufacturing.
“The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is Invest in Women. This is also something that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emphasized over the years. If we have to meet the PM’s clarion call for advancing nari shakti that was made this Republic Day, all of us, companies, educational institutes, and civil society organisations will have to come together to advance solutions to include, and also further women’s careers. With the Godrej ki Shakti celebrations in Malanpur this year, we wanted to emphasise that our home families will need to work together alongside our work families to make this change possible,” said Parmesh Shahani, Head – Godrej Diversity Equity and Inclusion Lab.
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