StartupTalky

Tag: working women

  • Why Female Delivery Agents Are Scarce and Top Companies Hiring Women Riders

    Before the industrial revolution, women were effectively excluded from well-paid high-status occupations. This was due to the lack of access that women had to higher education. A case in point was Cambridge university which only fully validated degrees for women in late 1947.

    The change has long been coming and the largest growth has happened in the 20th century. The labour market shifted as more women sought higher education and entered the workforce.

    Specialized higher professions saw women becoming doctors, lawyers and scientists and carving out long-term and successful careers for themselves. It has been a boon for the industrial society as governments realized that women in the workforce contributed to a higher GDP by increasing the labour supply in the country.

    The 2001 World Bank report titled “Engendering Development” clearly states the connection between women’s involvement in the economy and the resultant growth –

    ‘While disparities in basic rights; in schooling, credit, and jobs; or in the ability to participate in public life take their most direct toll on women and girls, the full costs of gender inequality ultimately harm everyone…ignoring gender disparities comes at a great cost—to people’s well-being and to countries’ abilities to grow sustainably, to govern effectively, and thus reduce poverty.’

    Gender vs. Profession
    The Delivery Service Industry
    The Companies That Are Empowering Women Delivery Riders
    The Friendly Changes in the Delivery industry

    Gender vs. Profession

    There are a wide number of economic, social and cultural variables that impact gender distribution in a different occupation, within a particular region or country or even in a society as a whole.

    As a result of gender clustering, women and men often participate in economic sectors in sharply different proportions. Professions which are demanding physically or require physical strength are, traditionally, considered male-centric. Recently, this view seems to be shifting, albeit slowly.

    The Delivery Service Industry

    This is a part of the service industry and does exactly what it says. It delivers everything from mails, packages, food etc for commercial and consumer use by road, ship and air.

    There are deliveries via specialized networks as well – e.g., pipelines for liquid goods and power grids for electrical power. It is a fundamental necessity of trade and commerce. Like every other industry, the delivery service industry has also seen changes over the years, and more so in the post-pandemic world.

    Delivery Agents

    Typically, it has been considered a male domain job, until recently. Challenges such as longer schedules, lack of adequate restrooms, unavailability to own vehicles, incomplete documentation and the risks associated with visiting strangers and communicating with them have hitherto kept women from taking up such jobs. The industry has a dismal 1% of its total delivery agents as females.

    What is Changing?

    Paradigms are shifting. Ideologies are changing. And ground realities are changing. Delivery companies are facing higher attrition. According to one estimate by a staffing solutions company, the delivery industry has a very high attrition rate of almost 8% per month.

    There is a rush to hire women delivery agents at India’s leading online delivery companies. There are several reasons for this demand.

    • There is a need to rapidly ramp up manpower.
    • Women have a better retention rate.
    • Women are seen as more efficient and disciplined.
    • Women are also highly focused.
    • There is a demand to improve diversity numbers.

    The Companies That Are Empowering Women Delivery Riders

    Ecom Express

    Ecom Express Female Delivery Agents
    Ecom Express Female Delivery Agents

    Ecom Express has about 2000 women working at its delivery hubs and about 100 women are in active delivery roles. The company currently has women-delivery facilities in Delhi, Ludhiana and Jaipur and aims at starting ten new all-women centres in the country this year.

    The Chief People Officer of Ecom Express, Saurabh Deep Singla says – “Hiring women riders is one of our several efforts to strengthen the participation of women in the workforce. We hire women not just to improve diversity numbers but because their retention rate is higher. Women associates are sincere, diligent and highly focused and they are also very efficient.”

    Shadowfax Technologies

    Shadowfax Technologies Female Delivery Agents
    Shadowfax Technologies Female Delivery Agents

    Shadowfax Technologies is another delivery company that works with online marketplaces like Flipkart and BigBasket and employs around 6500 female delivery partners. This constitutes approximately 60% of its entire workforce.

    Says Abhishek Bansal, the CEO of Shadowfax Technologies – “We are witnessing a growing demand for women as delivery partners with a considerable increase month-on-month across tier-1 and tier-2 cities and intend to grow this multifold. The entire hyperlocal delivery segment is contributing significantly to the increase in demand.”

    Swiggy

    Swiggy Female Delivery Agents
    Swiggy Female Delivery Agents

    Swiggy is another company that is taking an active interest in attracting female delivery agents to its last-mile fleet.

    It is allowing delivery by bicycles for short distances. The food delivery startup is exploring partnering with electric mobility partners to facilitate electric cycles and bikes for rent.

    Swiggy currently has 22% of its female delivery agents delivering on bicycles. Mihir Shah, Vice-President of Operations says – “Several women either lack access to personal motor vehicles or don’t have a driver’s license.”

    The Friendly Changes in the Delivery industry

    Although delivery companies have realized the importance and value of including female delivery agents, there is a need to make some drastic changes in policy in-house, to make the eco-system more women-friendly. Some steps implemented by the companies to attract more women to join their workforce are,

    • Access to hygienic restrooms.
    • Allowing menstrual leave.
    • Various safety measures to safeguard its female delivery agents.
    • Providing safety training.
    • Designing and implementing SOS alert System.

    Conclusion

    Women are ready, able and willing to take on such roles. It is the industry at large that has to overcome its gender bias. It is the industry that has to create a working atmosphere that is women-friendly. It is the industry that stands to gain maximum but making these shifts and allowing women within its folds.

    FAQs

    Why are female delivery agents scarce?

    Lack of adequate restrooms, unavailability to own vehicles, incomplete documentation and the risks associated with visiting strangers and communicating with them are some of the reasons why there are fewer women riders.

    How are companies encouraging women riders to join their delivery fleet?

    As many women lack their own vehicles, Swiggy is allowing delivery by bicycles for short-distance orders.

  • How Startups Can Create Work Culture Where Women Can Thrive?

    The article is contributed by Jaya Jha, Chief Product Officer, MoEVing.

    During recent years, we have witnessed some of the most encouraging signs for women in entrepreneurship, with 2021 being the year when the most number of women-led startups turned unicorns (8 out of 46 unicorns in 2021 were led by women), but there’s a lot more progress to be made. For instance, female workforce participation in our country remains among the lowest in South Asia at about 20% (as against about 56% among men), as per the Periodic Labour Force Survey. Even at startups helmed by the younger generations, these numbers don’t get any better. While less than 15% of all entrepreneurs in the country are women, the number of women at the senior level or even as employees in startups, especially in technology companies, remains abysmal. With this reality, we witness companies actively looking to hire diverse talent, which is a positive first step. The biggest question to address here is, how can employers make their workplaces fit for their female employees to thrive? The answer to this includes a manifold effort at levelling the playing field.

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    De-glamourising ‘Hustle’ Culture

    The common association with startups around the world remains the ‘hustle’ culture propounded by many male founders, who set their own working hours, many times late into the midnight hours, and whose colleagues are mostly men who live similar lifestyles. This culture of youngsters extending their college life only signifies a lack of empathy for not just different gender workforce but also older employees with families.

    Instead, what startups need in order to allow all their employees of all genders to grow is promoting a good work ethic, responsibility and flexibility. Setting minimal processes and bureaucracy can help startups make each of their employees stronger and more confident in what they bring to the table. With minimal processes, it takes a responsible team member to get things done efficiently — which is one of the ways of supporting women and people with family responsibilities to thrive.

    Getting Women Employees in Early Stage

    Women cannot be just token representatives in a startup, which often happens when diversity is more of an afterthought for companies. In order to make a workplace truly inclusive, it is important to have female employees in senior positions right from an early stage of the company. This not only helps women have more role models but also shapes the company’s growth, decisions and policies in a manner that takes all employees into purview. While having more female representation in leadership roles is not a silver bullet, it definitely helps the cause of supporting women employees to grow in their career trajectories.

    It is also crucial for both men and women in senior management roles to be conscious of their biases while hiring – such as putting down a female candidate who’s had a career break over a male candidate. In fact, during my career spanning 15 years as a Product Manager, some of the best hires I have made were women with career breaks who had the potential and passion to give their best. Even at MoEVing, our first few tech hires were women and we are proud to have several women on our product team as well as in the company leadership.

    Supporting Both Men & Women in Achieving Work-Life Balance

    We have been witnessing the current work from home routines adding a lot more onto women’s plates around the world, with women shouldering more responsibilities when it comes to family and household work. So, unless men start stepping back from their workplaces in order to step up for their female partners to fulfil their familial responsibilities, supporting women will only be lip service. We need to normalise men availing their paternity leaves so that women going on maternity leaves are not seen as a hindrance to their careers.

    It is interconnected that when we support male employees of a startup in achieving their work-life balance, we also in turn support female employees at other startups achieve the same. Work policies should be aimed at supporting all employees to achieve this balance, instead of leaving women disadvantaged at growing in their roles at work because of household or familial responsibilities.

    Closing the Gender Pay Gap

    Women’s way of working is often infantilised in startups as women often do not negotiate as much for their salaries, compared to men who are aggressive at it. This aggressiveness at negotiating for salaries or a raise has been made a virtue out of, resulting in several women not being paid what they are worth. As of 2020, women globally earned just 81 cents of every dollar earned by men, with the pandemic worsening the situation as a Deloitte ‘Women at Work’ report found.

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    To bridge this gap requires managers and startups to identify and value women employees for their performance. It requires companies to think about getting women on board right from the moment they start to lay their foundations and pay them what they rightly deserve.