INCLUSIVENESS PRACTICES

ANALYSIS OF 5 INDIAN
COMPANIES AND THEIR IMPACT
S U B M I T T E D B Y: SUBMITTED TO:
NEHA SINGH(0191PGMO82) DR.TEENA SAHARAN
A M A N J A I S WA L ( 0 1 9 1 P G M 1 0 3 )
SIDDHARTHA SHAH(0191PGM089)
M A N I S H A N K A R PA N D E Y
NUKKAD, THE TEAFE, RAIPUR (CAFÉ)
• They started Nukkad in 2013, with the sole purpose of developing an inspiring place that offers
equal opportunities to every individuals.
• 80% of workforce is made up of hearing impaired employees and trans memebers,who work on
various level from housekeeping to management, depending on skills set.
• Chhattisgarh as a high number of people belonging to the transgender community, as well as high
numbers of people who are differently abled
• They want to break the stigma attached to these identities, and showcase their skill sets.
• The journey has been very rewarding
There were challenges in the beginning people did not understand what they were trying to do, but
now Nukkad have became a popular café, not just because of the food, but because of their friendly
staff that makes all customers feel welcome. Regular customer now even come and celebrate their
birthday with their staff.
ON INTEGRATING OPENNESS INTO THE
WORKPLACE
• Before joining, all their staff members( specially kitchen operation team) are informed of the
work culture and the team that they are would be working with.
• They believe in experiential learning, so they work with their team on behavioural, persona and
professional grooming.
• They have strict policy for our customers, who must treat our staff with respect-or the customer
is barred from their café.
RADIO ACTIVE CR 90.4 MHZ,
BENGALURU( RADIO STATION)
• Community radios are meant to be safe spaces for everyone of caste, class , gender, race ,
region, language , sexual preferences occupation etc.
• When they launched the station in June 2007, it was a natural progression to make a conscious
effort to reach out to different communities of interest and geographies within Bangalore.
• Inclusive policies boost creativity and innovation, provide opportunities to learn and grow both
at the personal and professional level.
• They took baby steps, the first of which was obviously to unlearn and relearn many concepts
like community, participation, access etc.
• They had an orientation on understanding gender diversity, sexual orientation, common
terminology, gender identity, expressions, the use of right pronouns etc. Activists Manohar
Elavarthi and Akkai Padmashali were instrumental in this orientation.
• Following this, within the station, they made a conscious effort to document typical micro-
aggressions, offensive or inaccurate language, local slangs, and songs in popular or folk media
etc. and, also have had open discussions during lunch/tea.
• Their fear has always been on representational diversity or tokenism.
• So while it is easy to have members of different community groups work together, they need to
ask ourselves constantly -do they feel safe enough to participate and contribute fully?
• they thus remain mindful that both diversity and inclusion are part of a life-long journey and can
never claim that we have arrived.
ON INTEGRATING OPENNESS INTO
THE WORKPLACE
• The Monday morning meetings, compulsory team lunches are important ground to collectively
discuss, debate, and arrive at an understanding.
• Orientations are an important part for all interns, volunteers and guests too.
• they also conduct exit interviews to gauge how ex-colleagues feel about the practices.
• Regular trainings are a constant feature.
• Cross community-mentorship and coaching have really helped.
• they also believe in celebrating simple things – birthdays, food, festivals, and SRS surgery – just
about anything.
GODREJ GROUP
• Godrej strongly believes that passionate, rounded individuals with diverse interests make better
employees.
• When you can bring your whole self to work, you are able to truly prove your potential. All their HR
policies are designed keeping this philosophy in mind.
• their health insurance benefit allows our team members to add a ‘partner’ as a beneficiary and not only a
‘spouse’, they offer unlimited sick leave, and flexible timings and work from home policies are for all
employees
• they are always tracking their progress with regard to D&I (Diversity and Inclusion), identifying potential
areas to deep dive and find relevant solutions.
• While the journey of being an inclusive organization started long ago, over the last few years they have
tried to institutionalize this culture through various policies.
• The intent is simple – whatever they do, they want to go that extra mile to ensure that people flourish in
their whole lives, not just their work
• the biggest success has not been about numbers, or about policies, but it has been the dialogue that
Godrej has been able to establish on D&I related matters. Today they are at a stage where we are
discussing things that other organizations still consider taboo.
• They are working on extending their D&I initiatives to the most remote locations they
operate in.
• They would like to create the same experience for an employee working at the Godrej One
Headquarters in Mumbai.
• For someone working out of their factories in the North East. But, this is a journey and they
are happy that they are on the right track.
ON INTEGRATING OPENNESS INTO
THE WORKPLACE
• A D&I session is included as part of induction.
• They also do diversity sensitization workshops with employees across locations
• As they believe integrating openness and inclusiveness starts with your people and the place
that you work in.
CULTURE MACHINE, MUMBAI (MEDIA
COMPANY)
• At Culture Machine, their workplace ethos thrives on an assemblage of global diverse talent,
very philosophy on diversity emanates from their existing culturally diverse workforce.
• Right from their Talent Management Strategy which is firmly based on purely on the
competency of an applicant,
• The organizational and role based competencies, along with their employee’s performance
evaluation have been constructed keeping in mind sensitivities to issues of diversity.
• There diverse workforce helps us understand and work with varied perspectives which help
ultimately strengthen our foundation of the organization’s work culture.
• Diversity is ingrained in our system. Culture Machine, in spite having an approximate strength
of 200 employees has embraced employees from varied backgrounds, free of biases and
respecting individual/personal preferences.
• In the quest to be more minority friendly, we did face opposition and challenges when we
established the First Day of Period leave as part of the leave policy in our organization,
• But the important takeaway from this journey is that if you wish to be a trend-setter and break social
stigmas, you are bound to face opposition.
• . With respect to this policy, some of the questions they have faced were whether they were being
gender biased, the female employability ratio, the approach being regressive in nature, to state a few.
• And while the policy was questioned, on the other end it also received an overwhelming support
from our their organization and garnered media mileage across top publications
ON INTEGRATING OPENNESS INTO
THE WORKPLACE
• They have organized workshops that have thrown some light on aspects of inclusiveness and
diversity.
• One recent example of that would be a ‘Self Defense’ workshop that was organized on
Independence Day with the concept of #FreedomFromFear.
• All employees irrespective of gender were welcomed to participate.
• Openness and inclusiveness are integrated right from the beginning of their employee’s journey
at the organization,
• From an orientation to their business philosophy, their performance evaluation processes,
people planning strategies, and their employee engagements/ activities.
THOUGHTWORK ( TECHNOLOGY
CONSULTANCY)
• At ThoughtWorks, they believe that heterogeneity of thoughts, perspectives, ideas and
solutions enhances innovation, and innovation breeds business success.
• they actively strive to make both ThoughtWorks and our industry more reflective and inclusive
of the world we live in.
• D&I is ingrained in the DNA of the organization and influences all aspects of their business, be
it culture, policy or decision making.
• they are committed to being a safe and bias free space for women, and to being an ally to the
LGBTQIA community.
• they have a multi-pronged approach to D&I and there are various initiatives to drive this across
all their key functions, from recruiting, HR, training programs to marketing.
• For example, their initiative Vapasi assists experienced women developers who are looking to
re-enter the world of programming after a career break.
ON INTEGRATING OPENNESS INTO
THE WORKPLACE
• they have many internal events, guest speakers, film screenings and road shows to sensitize their
employees.
• The ThoughtWorks Away Day is an annual event, where employees from all the ThoughtWorks India
offices and a few representatives from global offices converge in one place, for a long weekend.
• The intent is to collectively appreciate and discuss the company’s imperatives. Topics on social and
economic justice, privilege, diversity and inclusion are discussed, with expert guest speakers joining in.
• After the Supreme Court verdict of 2013, their MDs published an open letter on our website sharing
their concerns on Section 377 and the right of every individual to express one’s sexual identity.
• The next step was hiring trans person, and they worked closely with Solidarity Foundation to make that
happen.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
• https://homegrown.co.in/
• Wikipedia.
THANK YOU