PAVING THE WAY FOR SHOP FLOOR DIVERSITY

The article explains the many initiatives the company is taking to ensure a more secure future for women in manufacturing.

- Sonali Mulay

Sudha Murthy may be well-known as a writer and philanthropist, but one of her earlier steps on the career ladder was as engineering firm TATA's first female engineer. Working for the TATA Engineering and Locomotive Company (TELCO) in Pune, she famously landed the role after complaining to the company's chairman about its previously male-only policy. With an increasing number of manufacturing companies in India looking at inducting more women on the shop floor, we look at how Sandvik Coromant's Pune manufacturing site is inspiring a more diverse, inclusive shop floor environment.

Women make up only 12 percent of India's manufacturing sector, which employs 27.3 million people, according to a 2021 estimate by GE. This lack of diversity was noticeable in Pune, and indeed across India, and historically there were hardly any women working on the shop floor.

This was largely due to certain government restrictions that made working flexible shifts difficult for women. In 1948, India put the Factories Act into place, which meant women could only workday shifts between 6 am and 7 pm. However, the regulations have changed in recent years, and employers now can enable women to work more flexibly. And it seems that the tide is turning. With greater flexibility and measures to make women feel safer and better supported, Sandvik Coromant's Pune facility has seen its number of female workers increase from 4 percent to 20 percent since 2020.

SHIFTING PERCEPTIONS

The manufacturing environment has long been considered unsafe and unsanitary; a shop floor full of dirty, heavy equipment that needed to be manually always operated. This was the mindset of many people working in Pune and, being an area rich in IT companies, local women in the workforce have typically favoured jobs in software over manufacturing.