From the Godrej DEI Lab, welcome to India Included. Here’s your host, Parmesh Shahani.
Welcome to Episode 2 of India Included. I’m your host Parmesh Shahani. I head the Godrej DEI Lab. It's a fun experiment to make our Godrej Industries group as well as India at large way more inclusive - and we do this through hiring, through product, through storytelling, through everything - and this podcast is just one of the things we do. Do check out all the other episodes and our work on the godrejdeilab.com website. I promise you - life badal jaayegi aapki. That’s my waada to you. 90s person so, Waada raha sanam….. Ok bas - this is not Sibaka Geet Mala alas, so that's all of my singing that you're going to hear, and now let's get back to the episode.
So you know what? Every time I pass a Tata Harrier or a Tata Safari on the Mumbai roads, I stop grinding my teeth at the traffic and my heart jumps with joy because I know ki since 2020, every one of these vehicles has been assembled, start-to-finish, from scratch, by teams fully staffed by women. Hai na amazing! At their sprawling plant in Pimpri-Chinchwad, which for all of us in Vikhroli Mumbai is in - Upper Vikhroli of course, all the way up to Pune it's Upper Vikhroli - their workforce includes close to 2,000 women, from mechanics to engineers. Many of these women come from the remotest corners of our home state of Maharashtra.
What a powerful image of the present and future of manufacturing in India, na? Koi shaq that its from the Tatas? From upholding independent India’s progressive values to taking the lead in employee welfare, the Tatas have championed DEI much before anyone even coined the term for it. The all-woman frontlines of Tata Motors echo their work in other major companies. For example at Tata Steel, group leaders have publicly committed to having gender minorities constitute a quarter of their workforce over the next few years. They've recently hired close to 100 trans workers on the Tata Steel frontline, whom they’re mentoring and skilling for specialised core jobs in mining operations, amongst many other things. Back at Tata Motors, women workers do things like lift windshields weighing 15 kgs while assembling those cars. Now I know it's 2025 and these things should not be such a surprise - oh wow 15 kilo windshields - but the fact that you’re probably going wooow after this means ki long long road ahead.
So in this episode I will explore how this 150-year old group is inventing the future for workplace inclusion in India – about how these all these women assembly lines came together, and what they’ll be making for us in the days to come. Please meet my dazzling guest today, the silver-haired and silver-tongued Chief Diversity Officer of Tata Motors. She’s been a very successful journalist and thought leader. At the Tata Group, she’s worked on projects aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. And you probably already followed her on LinkedIn, and want to know more about her #ikigai. Well, so do I! Welcome to India Included, Amrita Ganguly. First things first, because ikigai is so important to you, I thought it might be good for you to tell our listeners what it means and how you practice it in your current role and for everyone listening, we've just had a fun fusion Japanese lunch together before recording this podcast, where I got to know that Amrita has spent a lot of time in Japan meditating amongst other things. So her fundas about ikigai are not from an airport book and one internet diagram, but it's the real deal. So Amrita tell us about what ikigai is and how you practice it.
Hey, thanks. Parmesh. An absolute pleasure being here. To talk about ikigai, frankly, it was by chance and not design. I have always felt compelled to do something that I passionately believe in, and somewhere the skills kind of caught up and aligned so that it helped me, therefore make career choices, where there was a happy overlap of something I'm reasonably good at, something that helps me to make a living, and something that's generally good for the society at large, and that that overlap beautifully happened, especially in my career post media, when I went and spent a few years at Tata Steel Foundation. Working in a social sector was deeply enriching, and I felt that the closest in terms of personal growth happened at that phase. And of course, now as the Chief Diversity Officer at Tata Motors, I cannot re-emphasize how much this feels like a perfect balance of purpose and perhaps my own volition to do something and make a change. So ikigai as a concept, I of course discovered later, but right now, a lot of us who are working in this field of DEI and our practitioners, I think a lot of us do this because we are so passionate about it, and there is intrinsic value for the society at large. So somewhere, all of us are living our ikigai, and then that's the way I would like us to look at our jobs as well.
So tell me, what does it mean to be Chief Diversity Officer at a Tata Group company? What is a regular day in the office? Do you even have a office, or are you on the shop floor in the plant all the time? What are the teams you work with closely? Give our listeners like a taste of, you know, a day in your life.
Right. So let me start with the fact that I am the CDO by accident. I come from a Media and Communication background, so I never really saw myself in this role, which is technically an HR role. I never saw myself in this particular position. But coincidentally, in my 20-22 odd years of my career, I have always felt compelled to be part of narratives that were about change. So whether in media or at Tata Steel, where I was part of the Communications team, it was important for me to create something that impacts change. And you know, to me, I still remember a time - the outside opinion was, Tata Steel is a legacy company. It's a traditional company. It's a manufacturing company. Are you sure you want to do this? You have come from 15 years in Bombay, you carry a different mindset. Do you really want to do this? And I'm so happy to say that in the time that followed, the collaboration that happened in Tata Steel and the kind of leadership support that the teams got, we not only made changes at the policy level, they did some fantastic hiring work for different members of the community, started college engagements that were, you know, they were pioneering in their own way. It just goes to say that when there's the right mix of leadership and people to drive that change, it's bound to happen. So I don't see my role as Tata Motors Chief Diversity Officer any differently. The idea is to align to the leadership vision DEI we all know doesn't need a business case, but there is a compelling business case. But even beyond that, coming from the house of Tatas, it's a value driven approach we take. So therefore a lot of it is way of life and not just a program we run. And in terms of a DEI office, while we have a small team that's driving and anchoring the conversations around DEI, we do work extremely closely with all of our eight plant locations in several states, so which means frequent travels there, spending time with the teams there. Because unless business owns the change that you want to see, whether it's the metrics of hiring, whether it's for gender or it's for persons with disability, or if it is for people from the community - unless business owns that, this change is not going to happen. It's only going to be lip service. So a lot of the work that was done by my predecessor as well, before I joined Tata Motors had set the ground Parmesh, so it was easier for me to kind of build on it. As all of us know, there are some fantastic Lighthouse stories that have come out of Tata Motors, but I realised that it's an organisation that's reluctant to talk about the work they do, but in our past conversation, especially you and I have spoken about this. These conversations are important, not just for the brand, but they are very important for us as a nation, for us as a larger community, because the change that we collectively want will come from these examples. And therefore it's an absolute privilege to talk about the work Tata Motors has done in the recent past, and it plans to do going forward, because it's just not a solo narrative. It's a much, much larger narrative that involves all of us, right?
Thank you, Amrita. In fact, as you were talking, and I told you, that was around the time when I came to Calcutta, and I was with Anubhuti when Wings was launched, and it's just incredible, right? Because that energy in that room, the support of senior leaders like Narendran for example, Tata Steel, and when a Tata stands up for something, right, and it's the same thing at Godrej - when we stand up for something and we start talking about something, the nation changes - because our companies, our brands are very entwined with, say, the history of co-creating this incredible country. So I'm just so glad that you're talking so much more now about the work that you all are doing. But before we get to your Tata work and the recent work, I just want our listeners to understand what goes into making say this force of nature that is Amrita. So you said you came from Corp Comm, but you were an English literature student. You've been a writer, you've been a journalist. Just tell us a little bit about that, from this creative industry to the Tatas, and if it wasn't for, you know, this corporate leap, you know, how do you think your career might have been? And I say this, we started with ikagai, and you found an overlap. But I'm also saying this to so many people listening who might want to have a career in which they're making an impact in so many ways. And if, say, if you're not from an MBA program or a business school, how do you get here and make a change? if you can just take people through your career trajectory a little bit before the Tatas.
So my story starts with actually running away from Jamshedpur becasue the family saw me as an Engineer or a Doctor, because I was reasonably good at my STEM subjects.
It was a Tata family, of your parents -
Yes. My father did work with Tata Steel, but it kind of was expected that one follows in the footsteps of - but at that point of time, it wasn't something I wasn't something I was willing to fall in line with. Maybe that's the secret, Parmesh, I refused to fall in line at all stages of my career. But yes, I did know I wanted to do my literature, my mass media, and land up in media. So that was pretty much a straight line post my school education. Subsequently, I did spend 15 years in Bombay, in different media houses handling content for Times of India, BBC, Disney - several publications. I think all of it came very naturally to me, because the title didn't change, but the brands changed. I was editor for a fair amount of publications, but when the opportunity to work with Tata Steel came in 2015 for Corporate Communication, it kind of reiterated the fact that, hey, I was being called for something that was my forte, and I was not coming as an engineer, which I didn't want to be. So that gave me a chance to again, re-enter the corporate space and own it to the extent one could. To be fair, I did feel a runaway in about a few months, because there was a massive culture change that one experiences after working in media. But I must give credit to the environment there, especially the leadership, that they were open to listen to external voices. They were open to kind of look at what value could someone with a different kind of experience bring into the stable, and with the fact that I was also homegrown - so I knew the brand, yet I had an external perspective. Eventually I went on to work for Tata Steel foundation because I desperately wanted to learn something new. And fundraising was something I did not know anything about, but I thought, if I don't push myself, I'm not going to learn something else. When the diversity piece came up, Parmesh, and this is public information - it's not my planned career in terms of my logical growth into my in my field. But I took this up because I realised, again, on the point of ikigai - that when your purpose of making a change, and that's something I've organically felt throughout my career, whether it was for being part of posh committees or, you know, initiating Employee Resource Groups, or creating different kinds of activations, you know, organizing things like dialog in the dark, or bringing in some amount of conversations around the pride community - we had Ayushmann coming over and talking about the movie he was launching then; you were part of our, you know, engagement with the senior leadership. So we kept doing these things in a pretty free manner. And the pleasant story is that, as a bystander, I saw Tata Steel emerge as a leading voice of inclusion from a time when I was told, "Hey, you come from media, so you might want to lie a little low, this is a traditional organization" - but they proved everybody wrong, and they made that change that was tangible, that was recognized by the World Economic Forum, and everybody talks about it today, because everyone came together and built that narrative. So if you ask me, you know what, how did my academic background and my professional journey add up to this moment in my life right now? I think a lot of it comes from influence, that I will admit I moved from a prescriptive mode of ye karo woh karo, to understanding, okay, if this person disagrees with me, he or she or they have a rationale for it. Can I understand that rationale and subsequently influence them? And that became a massive personal growth curve for me, because, you know, frankly, there are times in your career when you look at someone who doesn't understand the narrative of inclusion. Part of your brain said, How stupid are you? But the other part of your brain said that they are compelled by their own conditioning, by virtue of which they can't see the other perspective, and therefore it's my job to nudge that change and make sure they understand why we are trying to do what we are trying to do. And the good news is they often come around. It's just that way you influence them becomes a criteria.
And then it's not compliance on their part, then it becomes something that they want to do themselves
Absolutely, and they own it, right? So at the end of the day, a lot of change that has happened, for example, in Tata Motors, definitely came from a cohort of people saying we want a chunauti, and we want to make a misaal out of it. Just translated it would mean you take up a challenge and you set an example out of it. And that ownership was tremendous.
But this chunauti and misaal, what you've taken - nothing is more evident than, say, the all women assembly lines that you've created. I don't know of that many companies who have all women assembly lines and automotive plants in India. I think maybe you all are the first and still only. It's a stunning achievement. We hear people who are saying, We can't find talent. There are people who are judgmental. They talk about all the problems. Meanwhile, there are companies like Tata Motors who've just gone ahead and quietly done it. So take us through what it what it goes through to build something like this.
So I think the Tata Motors journey started way back in 2014 when - the seed of the idea came from the concept that, you know, you often have disruption in technology, or, you know, you have disruption in processes, right? Can you do disruption in the field of DEI, specifically with gender? And the chunauti that the team took on, and there was massive collaboration between the business, the HR team, plus the union. So this is a very, very 360 kind of approach that was taken. It wasn't a project that just simply had needed project management.
But who gave the chunauti?
It was internal, and it was strongly driven by our CHRO and the leadership team. So Tata Motors has a passenger vehicle business and a commercial vehicle business. So we have a governing body called the EXCOM. The push came from our board as well. Currently we have 33% women representation on our board. So it was something that was owned by the organisation. That was the beauty of the whole project. And while the Harrier Safari line is something I'll deep dive into, we tried this in parallel in other states as well. So we did a Durga line in our commercial vehicle business in Jamshedpur. We also did a rear axle line in our Lucknow plant, which went up to 80%, and Durga line was 100% as well. And these are large trucks and buses, right? And the Omega line, which is our Harrier Safari premium high end SUV line, it's a wonderful showcase of a pilot that was done in a contained environment. The debate, Parmesh, can always be, oh, you know, you're creating an island that you know you really don't have a real time environment where, you know the women are working. And this is almost hermetic, right? Because it's a controlled environment. I would debate the other way around. I think it was a successful mission to work on, A, the mind space of the women themselves. We were told we wouldn't get 200. At any given time, we have between 700 to 2000 women at that time.
Oh my god, can we just clap on this podcast. That's amazing.
Yes, absolutely. And anytime I speak about this on any platform, I make it a point to go back and tell the girls I spoke about you all at this platform. And this is the taali that we got for this, right? And so that was one part. Then there were the families themselves, whether it was Jharkhand, whether it was Maharashtra, we took time, but the families came on board very quickly. A, because the Tata name helped. B, we also took a very, very carefully planned approach in terms of safety. So we have the drop and pick up system. There are CCTVs loaded in the vehicles. There are marshals and women safety personnel that are accompanying these women when they are being dropped by. So you take so there are some clauses in the factories act that one needs to be compliant with. But even beyond that, you go over and above, right? So for example, in one of our locations, the white collar staff by rotation, the managers ensure that the last girl is dropped and drops a text to the leadership team. So these are little things that people do on their own volition. So back to the Omega line. The idea was to take a holistic approach. So there was the psychological space of the women themselves, their training, their families and telling them, this can be done. The second piece, and I think that is where the backbone of the story is. The entire plant was redesigned to ergonomically suit women. So there were planks added, there were semi automation added to make sure that the inconvenience of working in a traditionally manufacturing environment would not cause physical exhaustion on the women. So those changes were made because expecting is like asking a fish to fly, right? So we made that change, and I felt that's the large piece of commitment where the inclusion will happen at a certain cost, because it wasn't factored to begin with, and if it wasn't factored to begin with, right now, it's not an expense, it's an investment.
Yeah, but most - and rightly, most plants are designed for certain heights or certain body structures, etc, which are not, they're not conducive or measured or designed for women, right?
So that that was a huge commitment, again. And the third piece was, I think, is a very, very important piece to help with the education and the growth piece. Yeah. So we introduced a program called Kaushalya, which ensured - it's also known as the Earn and Learn program, which means, while you're working, you can pursue and advance your academic development and appear for your exams, and if you successfully clear those courses, you also can move into a permanent role. So it became a environment of sort, which was, you know, self sustaining then, and we managed to create managers out of trainees. And today, you know, when you go back to the shop floor, you'll see there are supervisors, there are quality managers, there are self directed groups, and all of that comes together in an environment that's self sustaining. So that is the beauty of this piece. And something else I love to say, because all of us are snarky about that women don't make you know good drivers. I take that very personally, but I do feel that when you see this plant and you realise that the kind of work these women are doing - the Harrier, Safari are also two of the highest safety standard rated cars in the country today. So not only do you have a powerful story from these women, you also have no compromise on style and design and safety.
Yeah, and I don't know if people who are listening realise that if you're driving a Harrier or a safari, as so many millions of people in this country are, that they're made and assembled by women. So congratulations. The way you describe it, it seems so magical and dream like, but I'm sure there must have been challenges on the way. I mean, you know, it's a dream, right? Everyone is aligned. Management is okay. Did you have any obstacles along the way? Didn't you have any challenges, if you want to take us through some of these?
I think it's very important to talk about the challenges, because it's more realistic. Organisations such as yourself, us, we are open to talk about our learnings, because we all know it's a joint mission, right? So our CHRO was very clear that this is something that the business needs to own, enabled by HR. Second piece is that leadership buy-in is non-negotiable, because unless the funds are there to support the plans, the project is not going to take off. Right? I think the challenges came from a lot of mindset issues from women themselves. So the team, the extended team, including people from the business, spent a lot of time in coaching and counseling women who are not used to stepping out of their homes. And you know you, you trust that name. Sure, there's a brand name that you trust, but you still don't know ki woh karte kya hai, right, at the end of the day. So we ensured that the families could come to the plant and see what they are doing.
This is for trainees, you are saying.
For the trainees. So a lot of psychological safety was built over time, and that took us some time. The other piece is that, you know, when you're doing something good, you also look at things like, I almost find them hilarious, but they're sweet in their own way. We suddenly discovered that the women were not meeting the weight criteria or the height criteria, there are some guidelines. So we actually had the policies to be changed and updated so that they could be accommodated because we couldn't stretch the women, now could we. But of course, they needed the planks and the automation as well. The other piece was we also worked on the diet piece. We made sure there was no eggs and bananas given to the canteen meals so that they could also you know, nutrition could be enhanced, and they would put on some weight. So the team, went along, and there were these little challenges that they were proactively handled as they moved forward. And when a good thing stabilises, and it's almost, you know, a sign of victory, as I say this, though, it is a challenge. There's also some poaching now. Because, you know, we have created this pool of of self sufficient trained women who are now comfortable being leaders, so there is always a threat of them being poached, right? But I personally see that as a compliment. I think there's enough for us to do together so that all of us can create more opportunities, more training, more financial stability, and that impact that we create jointly - it's way larger than for us to have petty conversations on who left us and who joined somewhere else.
That's also the other thing. The point is to get more women in the workforce. Amrita, I want to ask you about how you've influenced senior leaders, how you've specifically been able to influence senior leaders, senior management, people who wield so much power to actually come on this journey with you.
So luckily for us, a lot of the leadership was on board, like pretty much, you know, at the word go. What I realised was that, you know, when the business exigencies come on the first top gear, DEI is a subject that tends to then, you know, go off the radar. So I think I would like to focus on that aspect of the priority slipping, because we had the buy-in to begin with. Honestly, we had incredibly high buy-in from the leadership, but it's that shift in priority that -
So say COVID might come or something might come -
Anything. Or for the automotive sector, it's quarter to quarter that, you know, there is a lot of exigency that can happen in every day's work. What benefited us was this entire DEI architecture that was - you know, we hived into various locations, which I mentioned earlier, where the accountability is also with the localised head. What it does for us as a plan, that plans stay operational through our DEI network. So we have SPOCs, we have our business HR representatives. We have localised - the wonderful conversation facilitators. So we have - humaare log phaile hue hain. So we have representation across the value chain, so that the activities that we have committed to at the start of the year organically keep moving, and we create interactions and engagements for the leaders to come when they can give time. So for example, if there is a leadership cohort discussion with a cohort of women who are performing well, or they want to visit a certain plant and see its accessibility, the changes that we have done, then we weave it into their calendar. But what it works for us is that the buy-in is implicit. When we do celebrations like you know, fxwhen the Pride Month celebrations happened, we had a prominent intranet banner with all of our EXCOM members wearing the pride pin and holding up a card saying, I'm an ally. Now, it took us, perhaps, you know, three minutes per person to organise that picture, but that picture as a message put out a very strong - one message, one face of the leadership, because all of them were on the intranet. Anybody who logs in would have seen it. But what does help us, is to cascade the plans down to the units, down to the plants, so that that mechanism doesn't get stalled because of the business leaders' lack of availability, because they are clearly dabbling with a lot of things, right?
Yeah, perfect. Thank you. How do you track and measure some of these changes in terms of, you know, do you track numbers? Do you track belonging, you know, in corporate offices or in factories. I mean, what are some of the measures you use in terms of tracking?
Sure, so we do take a very measurable approach, especially for reportage, and we also have an integrated report, so we need to keep it measurable rather than motherhood statements on how much we believe in DEI. So at a CHRO BSC level, we do track elements which are pretty standard, like we track our hiring numbers across levels. So we are tracking them at a Cadre level, at a lateral level and at senior leadership level, because we've identified certain areas we need to focus on, and we are doing great numbers, for example, on the Cadre where we hire 40% plus women in that cohort. Hiring is one of our KPIs. The second piece is attrition. I think it's important to not only bring in women or any cohort that's underrepresented, and also retain them right? So creating that environment with the right kind of manager ownership, cultural environment, policies and benefits that support those life stages that they bring with them. If you're not up to speed, I would rather say don't hire. The third piece, and you're absolutely right that this is a more psychological metric. We have an annual engagement culture survey that we do, and one pillar, which is part of our culture Credo as well, is on empathy. And empathy aligned, there are three questions. We have targeted to take a Delta spike in that number year on year, which basically looks at - is the company, does it have a design to create an empathetic environment, and is it a felt experience? So those metrics are voted by men and women both, but we of course, get to see the slice and dice of who is saying what, and we have taken that as a goal as well, because while it's not immediately tangible that Okay, today I ran this program, and tomorrow I'll get a score - it's an aggregate over the few years of experience, yeah, but it's still a safe metric to take, because that cannot be ignored. So therefore there are hard numbers in your hiding and attrition and but there are aspirational numbers in our engagement score against empathy, because we seriously want to build that culture as a long standing, you know, virtue of the brand.
Yeah, and for everyone listening - all of us who work in the DEI space work in different ways, but we really, really measure what we do very significantly. Have you put inclusion targets or goals on any of your senior leaders' goal sheets? Is it compulsory in any way? Because this is something that we've done recently at Godrej, and it's actually playing out magnificently.
Right. So our DEI goals sit with the CHRO currently, but the goal, as they cascade down, work down to the plant level. So what therefore happens is that across our eight locations, we have individual plans taking up challenges. For example, just recently, we have a commitment of close to 100-150 persons with disability being onboarded across our plants. But then each of them is a 20% cohort. So they add up to a target, but it's easier for me to operate and, you know, govern the journey, because they're happening in - at a plant level, because the plant leadership then has a buy-in there. Similarly, with women, we have done some fantastic work by when we hire our trainees, there are certain plants that have done 100% trainees - women trainees. That, again, is a plant to plant choice, because ownership is coming from the plant leadership and the plant HR. So I realized organisationally, there is a lot of push from the senior leadership at an enterprise level, but when it comes to deployment, our plant leadership is something that we heavily rely on to make these changes happen at the ground.
You spoke earlier about earning and learning, and I just want to learn a little bit about the career progression. So have you - are there stories that you might have heard of about, you know, young colleagues in some of these frontline roles, which can maybe motivate or inspire people who are listening that about, you know how change is possible.
Parmesh, frankly, there are too many, and that's a good news, right? It's a good problem to have, yeah. So there are, there are many stories that where I've learned. In fact, I met this youngster in Jamshedpur, for example. She was part of the Earn and Learn program. Young girl, she was very enthusiastic. She was doing well at her work. She was doing the Kaushalya program as well, and side by side, she also - her friends nudged her into ma'am ko batao, ma'am ko batao. She also runs her own cloud kitchen. And I found that so inspiring in isolation. So that's, I mean, I'm just talking about enterprise that this young girl has the enterprise to do her job, to do her education and to run a cloud kitchen, right? And these stories are abundant. We have stories, in fact, if you see the video that the Tata Group team made for us on our Harrier-Safari line, there is one piece that gives me goose flesh every time I talk about it, where there's this girl from a village who was trained and who's now part of the Harrier-Safari line, actually talks about owning the car she has built, and I still get goose fresh because, okay, this is a premium SUV, right? But to be able to tell this girl that you can dream, you can aspire and it's not impossible, is a fantastic story of change for us. Tata Motors as a philosophy, does a lot of in grown talent growth, so which means that a lot of people who have started GT or, you know, MTs, have grown on to become senior leaders. But specifically on the women front, we do have a few examples where there are colleagues who have been promoted to senior leadership roles who are long timers in the organisation. So that's something the organisation proactively does - to. A, encourage stickiness with the organization, that there are both growth parts. and a couple of tools that we use extensively in Motors is, we have something called the IDP, the development program that's mandatory for everyone, and we make sure from DEI that the women have their development plans in place. Second is the IJP, which internal job postings, which allows for a lot of horizontal movement and inter function, interstate, inter plant movement, that tremendously helps growth, because the opportunities multiply then right? We also run leadership programs that are, you know, cohort based. So the Tata Group runs some, we ourselves run some where a cohort is selected basis their performance, and then there's a fast forward to their growth in terms of what they are doing, while a large part of it is for the white collar roles, we also have similar programs and learning opportunities for our technicians as well. And the company is heavily investing in learning and development and allowing for a lot of copay models, where we have opportunities of M Techs and MBAs and other other options of learning, where through a copay model, while you are working with Tata Motors, you can catch up on your education and therefore grow your career as well. So we have been very aggressive on this as well, and we have seen some fantastic numbers overall, but the percentage of women and even there are scholarships for girl child and for any kids who have disability in any form, additional scholarships are being given. So we're trying to keep this learning process as a major lever in the growth of our cohorts.
That's absolutely amazing. And you spoke about, I mean, obviously, still in the India of today, right, having a job at Tatas and wanting to grow with it is very, very aspirational. So it's really nice to see how at Motors and at Tata at large, you have all these various pathways. You know, is it Tata Steel and Tata Motors only, or is there a shift at the larger Tata level, as I'm seeing, and in a way, the Tatas have been, you know, so instrumental in nation building and creating the India of today. So tell us a little bit about workplace inclusion at this larger level, because I'm seeing an urgency. I'm seeing, as you're saying, a willingness to talk. I'm seeing so much action on the ground. Something has shifted at the larger level too, right?
I feel it was in the DNA itself. I remember, since I was in Corp Comm in Tata Steel, we were privy to some correspondence between Jamshedji Tata with his, you know, family, saying that the Jamshedpur he envisioned, and it spoke about, you know, putting community at the center of enterprise and not just a stakeholder. He actually called it the purpose of existence. That community is the purpose of existence for enterprise. Now, what that did was, when the plant came up way back in early 1900, people from all over the country migrated for this job opportunity, right? This was the first flagship, you know, industrial phase that started in India. And even, because I come from Jamshedpur, we grew up in such a cosmopolitan environment, Parmesh, is because we had the Madrasi Sammelani, we had the Kerala Samajan, we had the Bengali cohort, and all festivals and all food was something we got equal exposure to because of this nature of the city, right? So I think it is inherent in the brand to be secular. So that's one part of inclusiveness. On the gender piece. I think some tremendous work has happened. There are anecdotes like the Sudha Murthy story at Tata Motors itself, where she wrote to JRD Tata and said that, why is it - does your ad say "No, women need not apply." And that was corrected. We have a story at Titan where there have been women in the assembly line for the last 25 years. Again, the brand doesn't talk much. But these are realities. Tata Power, Tata Solar, recently has set up a plant in in the South where there's 80% women representation at the plant itself. And it's doing fantastically well. The TCS, you name it.
Tata Electronics.
Tata Electronics has done, done massive work, right? And what I find interesting is that there is work that's internal. So they are doing some changes internally, but they are also influencing a larger industry based approach. Or, for example, in Bangalore, I was part of a meeting where different organisations, like TVS and Bosch and, you know, other companies came in to talk about women in manufacturing. Now, that's healthy, right? Yeah, we are talking about it together and making sure that this is something we can cross learn and cross pollinate. And there are cases when we all know women sometimes need to leave an organisation because they are getting married or the husband is based elsewhere. There was actual conversation about looking for jobs cross organization. Now that's a fantastic sign, because if I have to retain my employee and I just need to talk to my peers to understand, Can I keep this person back if the husband gets a job in the same city, it's a win-win for all. But these conversations are happening, and that's very encouraging.
That's so mature and enlightened, also, right? And we don't think of - something that we've been trying to do as well, but I'm so glad that you have success of people meeting with potential marketplace rivals, but really saying that this is an ecosystem we need to live in together. So it gives me great hope. I want to ask you about the idea of intersectionality as an employer and how, how you're thinking of it at Motors, and maybe, you know, at a larger group level. Because with us at Godrej, I know even with you all, it's women, PWD, LGBTQ are primary cohorts. But how do you think of the intersections between these three, their particular needs, and how we as employers can somehow, you know, meet them?
So we work in the similar pillar approach as well Parmesh, because, the degree of understanding inclusion and the readiness of course, we all know it's a curve, right? The different levels of maturity in terms of understanding, also different levels of readiness. PWD in particular - I mean, it took us a lot of education to showcase there were 21 different kinds of disability, but most people understand three or four major disabilities, right where they think of then accessibility and ramps and different kinds of infra requirement. So first it started with education that can I educate my peers to understand that disability isn't that siloed, and it can actually be very diverse. On the count of LGBTQAI+, there has been a lot of openness in the organisation. But I do perceive a bit of, you know, sometimes I see people are apprehensive about something they don't understand, and it unfortunately leads to biases or decision making that is detrimental to the individual. I understand that, and initially I would be perhaps more, you know, enforcing of a change in their mindset, but I realised the organization took a much more mature approach, and we have a sensitisation program called Wonderful Conversations where we did not focus only on gender or PWD or on LGBTQAI+. We said, let's design a workshop model. It's a four hour model that we cascade across the value chain run by trainers who were trained internally. So we had over 150 trainers, the facilitators, and the entire program design is on unconscious bias and allyship. So we realised that if you don't make these conversations owned by the business, and don't put it into the mainstream conversation in a serious manner - so it's an in person for our intensive experience, and not an online course, for some good reason. And when this got played out last year, we hit about 1200 people, and that cascades into everyday behavior. So what I think we are trying to do is, apart from a hiring focus on gender, PWD, and friends from the community, we are also trying to simultaneously create a ripe ground for this to work. Because we have had amazing experiences where people have come out of that session and said, I never understood my privileges. Or they would say something like, you know, we play the privilege walk - the game that just lets you stand in a straight line and you move ahead or backward, depending on the questions asked. And suddenly they realised that the women would go back and the men would move forward, and I saw the body language of the men get uncomfortable, and later they would sit quietly and say, I never realised this. And to me that micron worth of change is what will help us with any hiring that we are doing.
And you do this in offices as well as factories - everywhere?
Yes. This is run across the cohorts and the the other initiatives that our local teams take beyond the sensitisation that we run centrally, we do a lot of psycho drama, we do a lot of nukkad naatak, we do - so there are - all plants have their own approach to working on sensitisation as well. So we allow that flexibility. So the piece on hiring is therefore strongly backed by this sensitisation. And we also have something called Manager Dashboard, which I remember a conversation you and I have had on this carrot and stick approach, where there isn't so much of a stick, but there's recognition for the good job that a manager does. So if you're invested in your team's learning and development, if you're invested in your team's growth, and these metrics are thrown up in the dashboard, and the better your dashboard, the better your performance for that year. So it interconnects tangible actions to growth of the individual, where it's a win-win for the organisation the individual, and also for our DEI mission, right?
Yeah. We use both carrot and stick at Godrej, and that's working. I like both. I feel both need need to be used. You know, again, it's just the sense of urgency, right? In terms of - We have this unique opportunity when a country is growing. How will we create Viksit Bharat, without taking everyone along. You had mentioned Jamshedji's, you know, idealistic vision. And you know, I'm drawn to the Tata Diversity Statement itself, which starts with this quote from Jamshedji Tata's letter, where he talks about these directions, given that you know when, as you recently said in building Jamshedpur, about areas being earmarked for Hindu temples, Mohammadan mosques and Christian churches as well. So that idealism, you know, wow - In an India of today, is really, really commendable, and I'm just seeing about how that idealism has, over the years, really diffused into so many other things that you're like doing, including at Tata Motors. I just want to really, really congratulate you in taking that spirit.
Also, I'm deeply grateful Parmesh is that because I grew up in the city and our entire generation that was exposed to this environment, I can tell you that no matter where they have landed up in the globe, they carry a certain hallmark of being from Jamshedpur, because the the approach, the personality, the thinking, is so much more mature than than one would expect from a small town which doesn't even have like, airline connectivity, right? So we were very blessed to be where we were.
It's liberal, cosmopolitan, plural, truly inclusive, even before these words -
became fashionable.
Became fashionable, yeah. Amrita, I want to ask you, there's such a focus on Tata Motors and DEI in, you know, in manufacturing, on the shop floor, in leadership. What about in advertising? Are we going to see more women in your ads? Is there a thinking around storytelling and communication through ads in any particular way? Either, you know, static ads in terms of hoardings and so on, or, you know, on some of the stuff that you'll do online.
No, absolutely on point. Parmesh, we do recognize that the growing customer base from women, especially in our passenger vehicle business, but also in our commercial vehicle business, it's an untapped market, right? So you will see a lot of small scale entrepreneurs who may be running their own fleet of chhota hatis, you don't know, right? So there is an appetite to onboard more female customers. What I would like as an independent opinion would be exactly as what you're saying, that there's more representation in advertising so that it encourages, in turn, more driving, more participation from the women in the society. With our Harrier ad, I think what got to me individually, they positioned with the hashtag of be the warrior. And the warrior spiel, in the visual representation, had men and women both. So the spirit of the Harrier to be positioned as a warrior. Not very inventive word play there, but it rhymed. We did show women driving the car as well. And this was almost to like, channelise the inner beast in you, and that didn't have gender. We showed both genders at that point. For example, our EV showrooms right now have been positioned for a very, very non gendered space. We are appealing to a younger audience that's not on the basis of gender, but more on a passion of a greener future. So again, that has been consciously made non gendered for us to appeal to a larger audience on the basis of the technology itself. Yeah. So there is, there is a consciousness to drive that narrative. But I agree with you. I would like to see more of it coming from our stable of advertising as well.
Yeah. And it's nice that you all are thinking along this, from the design, from the storytelling, and all these other perspectives as well, right? It's so vital. On a similar line, you know, Anita Sharma, who runs - she happens to be a person with disabilities who has her own driving channel on YouTube where she teaches other persons with disabilities, specifically locomotor, on how to modify and drive cars. I mean, there's such demand in the automobile space, right? And while at a larger level, people are thinking of public transportation, urban planning and so on from an accessibility perspective, it would be very interesting to see if you know what Tata Motors might be doing in this space, in individual cars as well, in terms of just addressing all these markets.
In fact, at a product and at a process level, I think a lot is set to change. You know, hydrogen is coming in a big way. We're looking at, you know, smarter batteries, more environmentally friendly batteries. Yes, fossil fuel will be driven out of the system eventually. So the product itself will see a change. But also in models, Parmesh, we are seeing a strong demand for the subscription model, where we don't usually own a car, but we kind of subscribe a car, where then it becomes easier for me to not keep a car as a stagnant asset when I'm not using it right. So the sector as we know it is set for change. Like I said earlier, it's very exciting time to be in the automotive space for youngsters, because you'll be part of defining the future. And it doesn't get more exciting than that.
And then, if you can intervene from, you know, an intersectional inclusion perspective, it's actually quite amazing to see what might come. So I think, from what I've heard, you all are doing some affirmative action as well in while thinking of intersectionality, if you can tell me a little bit more?
So our CSR team works very closely with the communities that are, you know, close to us, but also we have reached out to different pockets of the country for our CSR work. What is inherent in the design that is a intersection between DEI and affirmative action is we have women, which, of course, you know, is something that we are consciously working on. There's also the underprivileged lot where we want to have education and employability pushed as a concrete mission. Over and above that for any kind of, you know, caste based, demoralized communities that we have, we run extensive programs in not only, you know, mainstreaming them with education and employability, but there's a conscious effort to bring them onto a manufacturing line as well. So what that does for us is that somewhere there is a very, you know, integrated process of taking our CSR activity in part of our DEI agenda. But as I have said in in public forum, is that DEI is not CSR, right, so therefore DEI has its own appetite and its own strategy where it needs to be done for the three pillars I mentioned. But our AA work is also integrated in a manner that it also connects with employment and education. So the design is something that is similar on both sides, but these two strong pillars work consciously in building the impact that we want to build.
So you work alongside your CSR team, which is very unique. I don't know of many other organizations which actually have this kind of synergy, so I think that's quite exciting.
In fact, for example, the Earn and Learn program, the Kaushalya program, has a high representation of AA as well. When we do cadre hires again, there's a high representation of AA as well. So these are all you know, intertwined without consciously being called out as a strategy or a plan.
Yeah. Oh, amazing. So tell us about one exciting project you're doing right now at Tata Motors that gives you great joy.
So we run this program called Empowher. It's spelled as Em-Pow-Her. Empowher. Empower is something that we positioned as an empowerment program, as the name suggests. It's not a leadership program in the classic sense, because we felt that peer-to-peer learning is something inherent to women. And when I say women, it's not to say it won't work with men, but women, especially because they are such a minority number in any organization. There's actually a revelation when we talk to each other that, oh, you face this problem. Okay, I also face this problem - and that sorority feeling helps us translate a lot of our challenges into normalising them as a rite of passage. So we took the peer aspect. We brought in some specialised agencies to help with this personal goal setting, to get in speakers from our leadership to come and give them the message that we believe in you and you can do well. So we ran the first cohort last year for our L3 and L4 ranks. But then this year we thought we were we had a greater pool of people in a level below that as well. So this year, we have gone ahead and involved our L4 level cohort also. So we run this program in parallel of about 20-30 members in each of the batches. And over this year, it's about two and a half day program where there is lot of learning, lot of self exploration, a lot of peer learning expert sessions. And in the course of that, activities that we design in that program, we create a friendship pool, a friendship circle. So what happens is that, through the year then, this cohort becomes a part of your - the work that we are doing, it didn't get known as, oh, this was a cohort that we ran for x number of people. So every year, when we create an alumni for that program, they start mentoring the subsequent batches.
Nice. And they must be together on WhatsApp and things like that.
Yes. And what has helped us is that, you know, while we do understand that we don't want women excluded from the leadership programs - leadership programs don't have a gender, but this was a program that was important for women, especially in a transition phase - that you know, you have been a very good doer, but you now need to also become a strategist, or you need to become a manager. How do you make that transition? And there are the tricks of the trade available when you are part of such training, right? So this particular program, to me, we have calibrated in terms of the feedback we got last year, and therefore this is a new, improved version we are going to launch in December. Very exciting for us, because the best of the best spend time together at one location - and of course, it's a party, but it's a lot of learning, a lot of bonhomie that we see when we organize this.
So just the L3 and L4 for you are your most senior ranks?
L3 is when the middle management starts. So below that is middle then. L3 is General Manager, and above, and we're looking at L4 and L5.
So L1 is your senior. So tell me about what the next few years are like. You know, for both you at Tata motors, what are you specifically thinking of, and for the group at large. How is it going to be more and more inclusive?
So Tata Motors is on a good run, and we have recently announced a demerger that will bifurcate the commercial vehicle business along with the passenger vehicle.
I'm hoping, as a shareholder, it makes me more money.
Inshallah to that. What I think, you know, if there's a pipe dream that one can talk about, I really feel that, you know, you take up a challenge in the toughest spot. The commercial vehicle business for me, because as a child, I've always had this thing for large trucks and cars, I really feel I would like to normalise or the automotive sector and make it non gendered. We still see vehicles as a male forte, and I would like us to believe that not just women, but anybody with a certain choice that they exercise as an identity, should be able to relate toward the automotive sector. It's that - that's the direction we should move. Internationally, truckers are conveniently women as well. And there are stories in India that we do hear - that there have been no chance stories about women driving trucks or buses. But I would like to see that normalised, especially because one of our businesses - we run electric busses in certain cities. And it would be wonderful to see fleets run by women as well. So these are things that one hopes for. What I think will also make the journey of Tata Motors be truly commendable is because, you know, automotive as a sector is a volatile one in terms of everyday numbers and market share, and you know, market caps, things like that. Yet, for a manufacturing company or a behemoth to kind of stick its neck out and commit to DEI is commendable to begin with. It's not easy because, you know, as opposed to an office based role, manufacturing itself comes with its own challenges, but I do wish that we position ourselves - and we are doing some fabulous work on this already - as a youth, friendly brand. We want to be seen as an agile, exciting - some fantastic work is happening in our - the both sides of the business. So there's a new curve launch, there is - our electric vehicles are doing fabulously well. The commercial side also is taking up challenges that we haven't done before. So it's a vibrant and very, very challenging space, and it would be lovely to be seen as something the youth can relate to and want to be a part of, because a lot of action is in the pipeline, and this is something that's incredibly contagious, and it makes it a happy place.
Yeah, and, you know, I always find it strange when people talk about these as trade offs. And you know, you all are a prime example, and indeed, so many others. People will say, focus on DEI at the cost of performance. But what most people don't realise is performance comes and you focus on DEI. Your own market cap has gone up 10 times post COVID, just as you all have been focusing on having, you know, all women manufacturing lines and so on, right? So I don't know why this narrative still exists in the world out there, that it's some kind of trade off, whereas the truth is it's win-win.
But I'll also make it more blunt, Parmesh, I feel that there's a talent war out there. There's a generation that's - would like to believe that the Tata Halo, or any of the strong brands in the country that people want to work with us, and there'll always be a pipeline. But if you're looking at qualified, meritocracy based hires, I have a 20 year old at home who is highly opinionated, and it irritates me. But at the same time, it makes me extremely proud, because, you know, I am happy they have a voice, and when they, when they exercise that voice, they are very clear that there are certain things are passion driven. For example, they care about the environment. They care about DEI. And if you as a brand are not aligned, they are going to walk away. So no matter how much you offer them, this generation seems to be driven far more by values than maybe you know our generation was. So we were still looking at roti kapda makan and some aspiration at some level, right? But the talent's going to walk away, and then it will be too late for you to pretend to retrofit your numbers and say, Oh, we have 10% women hires. They'll say, keep your 10%. I'm not interested. So if you really want to look at your talent pipeline in the next decade, maybe even shorter, you have to invest in the values that that generation is looking at.
Yeah, they're also your customers, right?
They're also your customers. Absolutely
If you're having fleets of all women truck drivers. They're your buyers, they're your customers, they're your everything.
And that's normal, right? You're just reflecting what's normal in society. A 49-51 right? So I'm not asking for a 49-51 but you at least get to some respectable representation, right
Yeah. When you were talking about fleets of trucks driven by women, as reminded of this wonderful film of about maybe 20 years ago, I think 23-24 years ago, called Manju Ben Truck Driver directed by Sherna Dastur, which is this incredible documentary about this woman truck driver. It's a one and a half hour long film, again, set in India about two and a half decades ago, and how beautiful and how accepting the road is, and the other male truck drivers on the road are off her, off the family, and it's kind of, you know, so as I'm reminded of that film, you know, many people talk about challenges with some of the things that we're trying to do, but people don't realise that we're also in a country which is - which embraces you, which embraces difference, which often welcomes difference. And a lot of times, these obstacles are so much more in our minds than it is in the world out there, right? So we just have to offer it. And I think it can happen in three or four years, instead of five to ten years - your vision of, you know, fleets of trucks, of data driven by women, because I think the country is ready.
That's fabulous. And then also what I feel, taking a cue from what you just said, you know, I do believe in the individual contribution in any change. I come from the managerial point of view that if you have a problem, fix it. If you can't, I'm there. Which means that you, me, any of us, we have kind of molded the changes as we have grown, right? So for me, it's very, very important that the youth of today, a large party of your leadership, I know your fan following is immense - I would like them to practice the fact that don't wait for change become the change, right? And that just exponentially makes it move that much faster, right? So, yes, here's to, you know, all the good news that we can get -
And all our dreams coming true of a truly inclusive India happening. I have two questions. One is, what irritates you in this field? And then I'm going to ask you, what gives you hope, but what has irritated you the most in the past few years either in terms of people's attitudes or excuses that people make for not being inclusive - and then I want you to end, of course, by what gives you hope?
So let me just start with I'm glad I took to meditation about 10 years back. It has significantly mellowed my temperament over the years. What irritates me - Yes, I have been in instances where another person's point of view when they don't see inclusion as something that's organic and necessary used to really trigger me. And short of boxing, those people right there, I have had to kind of keep a straight face and say, hey, you know, how can I deal with this differently? It ticks me off. But I think one of the the philosophy, the whole basis of you know, inclusion, is to also include the naysayer, right? So if I'm asking you, to include the underrepresented, your point of view doesn't sit right with me, but it's my job to also, in the spirit of inclusion, influence you to see the larger picture. And what I felt worked beautifully, both at Tata Steel and at Tata Motors, is the contagious spirit of success. The moment you create a positive story in any part of the business, the chain effect that creates is beautiful, and suddenly you have initially convinced it was not going to happen, who become your biggest allies down the line. So that chain reaction has helped us to a great extent, and change has happened. And that's what gives me hope. I think, by virtue of creating pockets of excellence in the value chain, the idea is to not go to a building top and say, Oh, we are going to achieve x by y year. We took a rather grounds up approach and say, Hey, let's every location decides its own appetite, we will enable them, you know, the way it can be done. We have designed a lighthouse model that allows us to at least do a comparable reportage. So we will report on, like I said, hiring, attrition, the programs we are running on sensitisation. So it will be comparable for reportage purposes, but it's also non-competitive. You do what you are comfortable with, because every state has its own nuance. Lucknow is significantly more conservative than, say, a Maharashtra, but we have had a fabulous run with one of our lines being there up to 80% representation of women. So the idea is to allow this contagious spirit to influence and in our own collectiveness inside the organisation and with you know, partners such as yourself, create a larger narrative so that we can jointly influence the change that's bound to happen.
Yeah, may the inclusion contagion keep on spreading. No flying cars or anything in Tata's ...? Everyone is doing driverless. No, but we don't want driverless, we want women drivers.
My closing remarks would be, I mean, I don't get triggered by too many things, but this line that women can't drive, you know, it gets to me because I think I drive reasonably well, but it's not about me.
Everyone, Amrita drives a red Harrier proudly made by women in Pune.
Very very proud, proud owner of the Harrier, yes. I just want people to realise that it's a matter of exposure, right? We have told men they can't parent. We have told women they can't drive, just as a manner of speaking. The longer we keep telling them they can't, their apprehensions about that particular you know, reality of their life will continue to gobsmack them. So if you normalise a father being, you know, tender towards a baby, absolutely comfortable, or a woman being comfortable with the car, or, you know, any kind of no matter what your identity, what your gender preference, we create an environment where roles are not stereotyped, right? You get to exercise your choice and with experience, therefore, the driving piece will become normalised. So recently, one of the national car races - the car rallies, was a woman winner. Then it's not news. I would want to normalise it, as this happens regularly, right? So the idea is that if you keep reiterating you can't, people start internalising that. So we need to tell our youngsters, whether they are girls, boys, any gender they belong to, that you can - and then you unlock their potential without any kind of inhibition. So this women can't drive is a problem we have created for ourselves, and I really wish that the next generation erases that. And that's my personal vendetta.
So not driverless cars for Tata Motors, but cars with women drivers.
More cars, and more drivers means more cars.
Yeah, thank you so much, Amrita, for being here and for sharing stories about your life and your incredible success at Tata Motors, and much, much, much more power to you.
Thank you so much. And I will close with the words that I think every journey that I have had a chance to be a part of, it's always teamwork and teamwork alone makes the dream work. So that's that's for me to be the reason to be here, to reason to how to have these conversations, is that collectively, our chances to make that change is that much higher, so more power to us.
Thank you.
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