Gender Diversity Boosting Supply Chain Performance

Companies with more gender-diverse leadership experience more significant financial gains and a marked competitive advantage.

The true economic potential of logistics and supply chain organizations can only be realized by tapping into a workforce’s full potential. There is a lot of data to prove this, and it keeps adding up. A 2020 McKinsey report that surveyed over 1,000 companies, including supply chain organizations, across 15 countries, including India, revealed that companies with more gender diversity among leadership saw greater financial gains. The same report also showed a correlation between diversity and performance, with companies with diverse leadership experiencing higher performance and more competitive advantage.

There are several other reasons. Diverse teams have been shown to make better decisions and solve problems more effectively. Diverse groups also reflect the diverse customer base, leading to better understanding and meeting their needs. Clearly, all such studies and surveys make the case that for supply chain and logistics organizations, embracing gender diversity is the right thing to do and a strategic advantage in today’s globalized world. The following are some measures that the logistics sector companies need to adopt for better women’s participation.

Measures to Improve Gender Diversity

To foster a genuinely gender-diverse work environment, the main approaches to adopt and implement are as follows:

• Ensure women’s safety at the workplace: Implement comprehensive safety policies and procedures to prevent and address harassment or discrimination against women. Conduct regular training sessions and workshops to raise awareness about women’s safety, educate employees on appropriate behavior, and promote a respectful work environment. Establish a confidential reporting mechanism for incidents of harassment or misconduct, ensuring that women feel safe and supported when reporting such incidents. Foster a culture of accountability by swiftly investigating and taking appropriate action against offenders. Collaborate with external organizations and experts to develop robust measures for women’s safety and continuously evaluate and improve existing policies.
• Provide women-friendly workplace amenities and infrastructure: Create dedicated spaces for nursing mothers, complete with comfortable seating, privacy screens, and refrigeration facilities for storing breast milk. Establish clean and well-maintained restroom facilities that cater to the specific needs of women¹, including providing sanitary napkins and disposal units. Install adequate lighting, security cameras, and emergency alert systems to enhance safety in parking areas, entrances, and shared spaces.
• Offer flexible work arrangements: Adopt policies that allow for flexible work options, such as remote work or flexible hours, to accommodate women’s diverse needs and responsibilities, particularly those with caregiving responsibilities.
• Cultivate a diverse and inclusive culture: Nurturing a culture that cherishes and honors diversity is paramount. By instilling respect and inclusion as core values, organizations can set clear expectations and communicate the significance of gender diversity throughout their ranks.
• Reevaluate and enhance recruitment practices: Thoroughly scrutinizing recruitment processes ensures impartiality and propels diversity. Implementing blind resume screening, employing gender-neutral language in job descriptions, and proactively seeking diverse candidates through targeted outreach and partnerships can all contribute to achieving this goal
• Promote equal advancement opportunities: Creating transparent promotion criteria and ensuring all employees have equitable access to growth prospects is crucial. Additionally, instituting mentoring and sponsorship programs can provide vital support for women in their career progression.
• Institute family-friendly policies: Embracing flexibility in work arrangements, parental leave provisions, and childcare support acknowledges the diverse needs of employees. These measures alleviate the work-life balance challenges often encountered by women.
• Deliver gender diversity training: Regular training sessions to address unconscious biases, stereotypes, and the benefits of gender diversity is essential. Encouraging open dialogues and providing opportunities for employees to learn from one another’s experiences fosters a more enlightened workforce.
• Establish accountability through diversity metrics: Establishing measurable goals for gender diversity and consistently monitoring progress is vital. Leaders and managers must be held accountable for cultivating an inclusive environment and achieving diversity targets.
• Promote a healthy work-life balance: Provide childcare facilities or partner with nearby daycare centers, for example.
• Conduct regular assessments to identify and address gaps in amenities and infrastructure that could impact women’s comfort and convenience at the workplace.

What We Do at Horizon

At Horizon Industrial Parks, we have adopted and implemented the following policies to ensure gender diversity and inclusion:

Positive Affirmation Hiring Policy for Women

Our approach to fostering diversity and inclusion is through implementing a positive affirmation hiring policy. We employ individuals based on merit while ensuring equal gender workforce participation and opportunities. This policy is a powerful tool to address the prevalent gender imbalance observed in many workplaces.

Implementing a positive affirmation hiring policy offers numerous advantages. It helps attract more qualified women to join the company, thus creating an inclusive work environment where women feel valued and respected. As importantly, it yields tangible business benefits, as research indicates that companies with greater female representation in leadership positions are more likely to drive innovation and achieve profitability.

Mentorship Program for Women

Horizon Industrial Parks recently launched a mentorship program to nurture women employees professionally. This program pairs women with experienced mentors who provide guidance and support.

This well-designed mentorship program empowers our women employees to develop their skills and build confidence. It also facilitates networking opportunities with other women within the company and fosters relationships with senior leaders.

PoSH Policy and ICC for Creating a Safe Place for All Employees, Vendors, and Visitors

The Government of India enacted the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, also called the PoSH (Prevention of Sexual Harassment) Act, in 2013. The Act was an extension of the Vishaka Guidelines issued by the Supreme Court in 1997. The PoSH Act aims to ensure safe working spaces for women and enable working environments that respect women’s right to equality of status and opportunity.

The Act requires every organization employing ten or more employees to set up an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) to hear, investigate and redress grievances about sexual harassment. At our organization, we have implemented the requirements of the PoSH Act as a gender-neutral policy, and ensure that all employees, women and men, have access and recourse to it at all times².

Empowering Women with Policies That Create Harmonious Work-Life Balance

Horizon Industrial Parks offers a provision of 12 weeks of leave for commissioning mothers (for a woman who adopts or is a surrogate). In addition, the organization extends the convenience of working from home for women employees during the period coinciding with maternity leave. These policies are designed to provide women employees time to care for themselves and their newborn after childbirth, and to provide a measure of job and income security. It aims to safeguard women from dismissal and discrimination, provides the right to resume work after leave, and maintenance of wages and incomes during maternity.

Impact: Increased Women’s Participation

As a result of our gender-diverse and inclusive policies, Horizon Industrial Parks takes pride in the high participation rates of our women workforce, which notably exceed the industry average. Our female employees constitute over one-third25 percent of our workforce, comprising key leadership positions. We firmly believe that inclusive workplaces deliver better business outcomes and ensure a healthy work environment for all internal or external stakeholders.

Citations:

1. https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/featured%20insights/diversity%20and%20inclusion/diversity%20wins%20how%20inclusion%20matters/diversity-wins-how-inclusion-matters-vf.pdf
2. https://wcd.nic.in/sites/default/files/Handbook%20on%20Sexual%20Harassment%20of%20Women%20at%20Workplace.pdf