We have come a long way, for sure – from a world that was divided into silos of nationalities, communities, tribes, genders, castes (especially in case of countries like India) to a global village where boundaries are friendly and permeable, if not entirely insignificant.
Not that we are completely there where there is no discrimination and everyone is equally respected, we do need to pat on our collective back for being where we are. So what brought about that much required change? A gradual evolution in human consciousness and realization that everyone is important in their own unique way?
Yes. Plus more. Apart from the intellectual discourse around inclusion, there is enough data and real world examples to show that inclusion makes sense – in every sense. Whether it peace and harmony, economic affluence, social progress or any other aspect of life – inclusion adds incomparable value to each one of it.
Also, inclusion makes perfect business sense.
Take MakeMyTrip, for example. The last decade has witnessed the phenomenal growth of MakeMyTrip. From being a small organization fulfilling the ticketing needs of a niche segment of NRI’s residing in the United States, they are now recognized as the largest online travel agency in the Indian market. While volumes were growing, so was competition, forcing them to constantly question their approach.
Having always professed the need for a diverse workforce, they came upon conceptualization of the Holiday Expert channel. Born in the year 2012, the Holiday Expert channel was created to hire women who had corporate experience, loved to travel but could not sustain the 9-to-5 work schedule due to domestic demands. What they offered women was simple: work from home, give your best and get high commission-based returns based on how well you do.
The advantages of this sales channel for MakeMyTrip were numerous. The biggest one was that this channel offered them a large talent pool of capable resources – competent enough to create travel packages and empathetic enough to ensure high customer satisfaction levels. Needless to say this step ensured a high repeat rate. Since its inception, this channel has grown at double the rate of the total company growth and 20-25% of the holiday business can be attributed to this team of homemaker Holiday Experts. These women earn upto one third of the profits which MakeMyTrip makes on every booking. To add the cherry on top, MakeMyTrip’s infrastructure costs on the Holiday Expert channel is negligible. Their only investment is the training & development costs and those incurred on engagement activities.
At present they have 1000 such holiday experts in 8 cities and it is evident that they have just hit the tip of the iceberg when it comes to harnessing the potential of women!
Another case in point is Costa Coffee chain that actively encourages recruitment of hearing-impaired individuals. Not only has it created jobs for these differently-abled people, it has created a strong buzz for Costa Coffee in social arena. In today’s world of maddening marketing overdrive, it is easy to appreciate huge worth of goodwill. It’s not like money can buy you positive limelight, well, not anymore!
They have obvious benefits like lesser attrition rates and not-so-obvious ones like higher customer loyalty. Call it human connect or whatever, it has been noticed that customers tend to develop a stronger bond with employees having disabilities. Once there is a good rapport going, worth-of-mouth does rest of the work for them. Another interesting thing that works for them is that other employees are inclined to be more cooperative with their disabled colleagues and there is harmony at workplace.
“It’s a learning process both ways and has its light moments. After dealing with their hearing-impaired colleagues for long, the rest of the staff often tend to speak to each other in sign language, forgetting their own gift of speech and sound,” a staff-member at Costa Coffee mentions.
Lemon Tree, another champion of inclusion, started by employing differently-abled people with no grand vision other than to provide a couple of them livelihood. But soon they found great employees in them and realized that 10% of India is disabled in some form or the other. It’s with no sense of charity that they have employed hundreds of differently-abled people presently. 90% of such employees are speech and hearing impaired but there are other categories like orthopedically handicapped.
They face issues like working on their qualifications, skills and career graphs along with sensitizing other employees towards them. Challenges notwithstanding, Lemon Tree is looking forward to expanding its vision and integrating 20-25% of disabled employees by 2019.
Tata Second Career Internship Programme, a career transition management programme for women professionals who have taken a break of 6 months or more for any reason, and wish to re-enter the professional space is another example of embracing inclusion. The programme provides opportunities for such women to take on flexi-hour assignments with various Tata group companies. Launched in 2008 on International Women’s Day, the programme provides live business projects requiring approximately 500 hours of engagement spread over 6 months on a flexi time basis. Aimed at developing alternative talent pools in traditional/non-traditional formats, it provides access to mentors and guides on the project and HR support.
More often than not, these initiatives are highlighted more from a “helping women out” standpoint. Nevertheless, studies have shown that inclusive options like these increase productivity, have happier employees, decrease attrition and reduce infrastructure costs, not to mention having access to a huge talent pool. A total win-win situation!
I think the verdict is out. If you want to make your business great, make it a great place to work at (or work with, keeping flexibility option in mind). Any system will flourish intellectually, financially, emotionally, spiritually and wholistically only when all voices comprising the system are heard and acknowledged. And before that, when it is made sure that all voices are made a part of the system.
Translating it to organizational context, it is not just good to have diversity, it is of utmost importance. And once there is diversity, it has to be made sure that everyone is included, recognized and celebrated for their contribution.
The world needs all the flavors it can offer!
With inputs from MakeMyTrip, http://www.dailymail.co.uk, http://www.tatasecondcareer.com/, The Lemon Tree Initiative (YouTube)
