Leah Dango, Segment Director, Pharmaceuticals & FMCG, Sodexo
Leah Dango, Segment Director, Pharmaceuticals & FMCG, Sodexo explains how the workplace can be made women-friendly and how an organisation as a whole can reconfigure itself to be considered by female employees as a good place to work.
No ‘male’ jobs
Our attempt has always been to break the stereotype. We are very open to recruiting women for various roles based solely on skill and beyond the conventional roles that have been presumed to be for women. Historically, there has been a gap that differentiates roles based on gender; we are working towards bridging that gap which is why we are recruiting more and more women in technical jobs that require electrical and mechanical skills.
We prefer sites that offer safe working environments and roles in which our women employees can utilise their skills to deliver results. And there has to be room to learn and progress further.
HR practices
We offer several women-friendly benefits including caregiver leaves, extended maternity leaves, medical insurance, flexible working hours, infrastructural facilities, geographical flexibility to switch sites and support services for EAP and SOS counselling.
When any female employee leaves the workforce, a thorough exit interview is conducted, and we also encourage fair recruitment practices through blind screening based on skill sets.
Hiring process
All the recruitments are directly observed by our DE&I team in terms of site, location and state and in terms of enhancing and encouraging a diverse workforce. In case there is any drop in any of the numbers in the workforce, the senior leadership in the country reviews and seeks corrections.
Higher incentives are offered for referrals that involve women employees. We encourage spouse hiring and Sodexo also collaborates with several women-led self-help groups, NGOs, institutions, and train-and-hire partners to ensure a strong talent pipeline through training and grooming.
Workplace safety
We give women workers access to an SOS button and ‘AccessHR’. It is an access tool that allows every frontline employee to take recourse through the SOS button. Sodexo also supports women employees with accessibility to the POSH committee so they have a free helpline that they can reach out to at any given point in time to register any kind of grievances without fear of any retaliation.
Reaching out
We also have a monthly only-female employee engagement workshop at most of our sites where women leaders reach out to female workers and proactively seek any signs of challenges that they may have at the workplace. There is also the mental wellness helpline that is available free of cost where they can take recourse to consultants or psychologists for their mental well-being. It is available to them and their families.
By working with like-minded clients, we aim to achieve the target of 25% of women in frontline roles by 2025.