Automakers step up hiring of women for shop floor jobs

New Delhi Homegrown automakers Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, Ashok Leyland and Hero MotoCorp are accelerating the drive to employ more women in shop floors as they press hard on the pedal to enhance diversity.

Once outsiders but no longer, thousands of women are now rolling out from two-wheelers to popular SUVs and heavy commercial vehicles across different factories of these companies. Tata Motors has over 4,500 women working in the shop floors across six manufacturing plants, including an all-women line at its Pune facility with over 1,500 of them producing popular SUVs such as Harrier and Safari.

"We are an equal opportunity employer and believe a gender-balanced workforce leads to increased productivity, better decisions, enhanced collaboration, and more innovative ideas. Our focus is on enhancing diversity, especially on the shop floor and 25 per cent of all our new recruits are women," Tata Motors Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) Ravindra Kumar GP saod. He further said, "Today, over 4,500 women are actively engaged on the shop floors of our various plants. They exercise a wide range of functional capabilities on multiple products, from small passenger cars to heavy commercial vehicles."

Another homegrown automaker Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) has seen the number of women as its employees at manufacturing plants grow by three times over last year to 1,202 at present, involved in core activities ranging from welding to robotics loading, vehicle assembly and machine shop, among others.

According to M&M CHRO, Auto & Farm Sector Rajeshwar Tripathi, the company hires from over 25 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), some of which are women-only ITIs. "Our annual intake is in the excess of 1,200. We have adopted about eight ITIs in tribal areas, from where our intake is very regular," he said, adding, M&M too strongly believes that a diverse team is far more productive, the work culture is far better and such teams are more creative and more innovative.

When asked about the challenges in more women entering into automobile manufacturing, he said it is as much internal within the company as it is social.