Indians Building the Future of India’s Workforce

[00:00:00] Indian's Building the Future of India's Workforce In April 2023, India overtook China as

[00:00:08] the most popular country in the world. As per UN projections, India has a population

[00:00:14] of 1 billion, 425 million, 775,850, surpassing China for the very first time. A significant

[00:00:25] part of this growth has been driven by India's young population, with about 65% of Indians

[00:00:32] being under the age of 35. For years, experts have spoken of how India must leverage the

[00:00:39] sizeable young population and the demographic dividend that comes with it. Making the

[00:00:46] most of this demographic dividend poses a real opportunity for economic growth, and

[00:00:51] caching it however comes with sizable challenges. The key to encaching the demographic dividend

[00:00:57] is the creation of an adequate number of jobs and helping India's youth gain skills that

[00:01:03] can help them self-sustain. But it's not just about that. It's also about assisting

[00:01:09] segments of the population, particularly women left out of the formal workforce to get

[00:01:15] back into it. Given the changing realities of the workplace following the recent pandemic,

[00:01:21] it has also become important to reconfigure what it means to work in a formal setting.

[00:01:28] In this chapter, we won't get into an academic debate about how India can leverage its demographic

[00:01:35] dividend. What we will explore are concrete examples of how certain platforms pioneered

[00:01:41] by ordinary Indians are helping the country encash its demographic dividend, while also

[00:01:47] facilitating the entry of those often ignored or left out of the formal workforce.

[00:01:54] One such platform is Pune-based She-Work for women in the technology sector looking

[00:02:00] for jobs commensurate with their qualification and experience. Then we have bridge labs,

[00:02:06] a Bengaluru-based venture that works with technology companies to hire engineers fresh out

[00:02:13] of college and transform them to industry-ready developers. Finally, there is Ekattra,

[00:02:20] a quota-based sustainable lifestyle brand that empowers homemakers to earn a living.

[00:02:27] Speaking to the visionaries behind these ventures, one gets an acute sense of the work

[00:02:32] that goes behind providing people with the necessary skills to find quality jobs and help

[00:02:38] those long forgotten by industry find their way back into the formal workforce.

[00:02:45] Part 1. Solving the empty pond syndrome

[00:02:49] Narayan Mahadevan, the founder of bridge labs, calls himself a hardcore techie. He spent

[00:02:55] over 30 years in the tech industry, half of which was in the United States. Bridge labs

[00:03:01] was his third startup and was founded in 2015.

[00:03:06] When I started bridge labs, I found that the employability and recruitment space in the

[00:03:11] tech industry is akin to an empty pond syndrome. Engineers ask where are the jobs? And companies

[00:03:17] say where are the engineers? When plenty exists on either side. In the West, where unemployment

[00:03:24] among STEM graduates is less than 2%, India sits around 80%. So there is ample demand

[00:03:31] and supply. But it's an empty pond and both sides are struggling, says Narayan. He believes

[00:03:38] that every startup goes through situations where they take inexperienced engineers because

[00:03:43] that's all they can afford. For an inexperienced engineer, there is no classroom, curriculum,

[00:03:50] trainer or trainees. They learn on the job by problem solving, they are mentored by real

[00:03:56] practicing engineers and they learn exactly what is needed on the shop floor. And in a couple

[00:04:03] of months time, they are all productive. So when I started bridge labs, I unknowingly had

[00:04:09] already solved the employability problem. What I did for my own startups? Why can't I do

[00:04:15] that for the ecosystem? He recalls. According to him, the ecosystem is really struggling,

[00:04:22] particularly training institutes and ed tech companies. This is because learning happens

[00:04:28] by employing a predominantly classroom methodology. They first define a classroom, a curriculum

[00:04:34] and then coursework. And they treat each batch of students like a cohort and take them

[00:04:40] forward irrespective of whether they are capable or not. With the exception of technology,

[00:04:47] no other field I argue pushes learning in a classroom system, learning in other fields

[00:04:53] often happens through practice in the workplace. Take chartered accountancy for example. You

[00:04:59] do article ship and work with a partner who's not a trainer. After medicine you do a residency

[00:05:05] where the senior doctor is not your trainer. Unfortunately in the tech sector, we still follow

[00:05:10] a model that involves a classroom, curriculum, coursework and trainer training. How on earth

[00:05:17] are engineers going to learn in a practical mode so that they are able to be productive

[00:05:22] in their job? And does employable? Ask Narayan.

[00:05:27] This became the core philosophy of bridge labs. The engineer doesn't come onto their platform

[00:05:33] because they want to learn machine learning, data mining and DevOps. They do it because

[00:05:39] they want a tech job. On our platform we address problem statements

[00:05:44] and not any curriculum. Problem statements never change even though technology is ever

[00:05:49] changing. For example take an e-commerce problem statement. 20 years back we also had a shopping

[00:05:56] cart and a point of sale terminal where we were built. Today we do it online on our mobile

[00:06:02] phones but 20 years later I might do this transaction in a meta or virtual world. But

[00:06:08] would you remove the shopping cart? Would you remove the ability to itemize a shopping

[00:06:13] cart and select the quantity? Would you remove the payment that you do for what you have purchased?

[00:06:20] Ask Narayan. Whether you are shopping offline, online or in a virtual world, the technology

[00:06:26] used for a point of sale terminal will change but the problem statement doesn't. As new

[00:06:33] technology comes a problem is solved in a better manner. How engineers learn is by solving

[00:06:39] those problem statements. Mentored by real practicing engineers purely through a kind of

[00:06:45] a code review. There is no theoretical learning, it is all by practice he says.

[00:06:52] And so bridge labs has built a pure experiential learning, makeup phenomena and problem statement

[00:06:58] model where only practicing engineers assist engineers fresh out of college. This is

[00:07:04] followed by a prediction algorithm based on a proprietary track mechanism built to measure

[00:07:10] each applicant's tech capability, testability, learnability and community capability among

[00:07:16] 21 other different parameters. Based on this prediction algorithm, bridge labs predicts

[00:07:23] what kind of a job profile is suitable for a particular applicant. From day one bridge

[00:07:29] labs has been a B2B company not a B2C that means we work with tech companies and get

[00:07:35] a contractual mandate and they pay for it. Based on our prediction algorithm we map the

[00:07:41] engineer to a mandate and then train them exactly for the job specifications so that

[00:07:47] they are job ready from day one. Say's Narayan. Neither are we a pure edtech organization,

[00:07:53] nor a job tech or recruitment platform. The edtech platform has no clue about what

[00:07:59] kind of a job their learner will do. The job tech platform has no clue about what the

[00:08:04] capability of the engineer is. We kind of married the two facets together and created a bridge

[00:08:10] to employment through a lab we created he adds. Who are the applicants? About 90% of

[00:08:18] the engineers that they work with are freshers predominantly from tier two and tier three

[00:08:23] cities. It's not like these applicants don't have the capability. In fact, we've been

[00:08:29] partnering with the economic times campus start program for the last four or five years.

[00:08:35] Around 100,000 engineers from 3000 engineering campuses in India take our bridge labs tech

[00:08:41] quotient test. We find that 45% of them can be made tech employable. They are not ready

[00:08:47] today but they can be made tech employable. The engineers who enroll are predominantly

[00:08:53] from tier two and tier three cities because no employer is going there and no hiring

[00:08:58] drives are happening. Say's Narayan.

[00:09:02] What are some examples of tier two and tier three cities? If it's Maharashtra, the applicants

[00:09:08] could be from Nashik, Nakpur, Ahmed Nagar and Sangli but not predominantly from Mumbai or

[00:09:15] Pune. If it's Karnataka, they take in applicants largely from Hugli, Dharmar, Udupi

[00:09:22] or Mangalore. In Tamil Nadu most applicants are from Coimbatore, Madurai, Tirunel Valley etc.

[00:09:30] Meanwhile, about 80% of bridge labs's customer base are startups and product companies.

[00:09:38] Do engineers applying for tech jobs have demands of their own from employers?

[00:09:44] As we go to tier two, three and four cities, engineers there have only two or three simple

[00:09:50] demands, a compatible salary, a work location near where they live and a strong ambition

[00:09:57] to climb up the ladder. The segment that bridge labs largely get us to is predominantly

[00:10:03] hungry to get into a tech role, says Narayan. Getting a job on bridge labs

[00:10:10] A fresher first gets into bridge labs as foundation boot camp. This is a job guarantee boot

[00:10:15] camp, that means applicants pay a certain fee for the first portion of this camp. Here,

[00:10:21] they are not taken through any kind of advanced technologies like machine learning, data engineering,

[00:10:27] full stack development, DevOps and Cloud. They are taken through core foundations important

[00:10:32] for any of these technologies like understanding Linux, object oriented programming, design,

[00:10:38] database, IO streams etc. If applicants don't have this foundation in place they really

[00:10:45] can't do anything above it. This is followed by learning by problem statements and creating

[00:10:50] that drag valuation. That is where we approach tech companies asking them what kind of a job

[00:10:55] role they are looking for and if we can map these engineers to that job role and get

[00:11:00] a contractual mandate. Our goal is that every engineer who gets into this program based

[00:11:05] on their caliber are taken into some kind of a job, which could be from deep tech, machine

[00:11:10] learning and data engineering to cloud, DevOps, full stack and basic standard tech jobs.

[00:11:17] Explains Narayan. Meanwhile bridge labs uses three steps to prepare

[00:11:21] engineers to suit whatever job roles companies require to fill.

[00:11:26] Number 1. The first leg of the program is mandatory for all so that they are able to

[00:11:31] predict their caliber. Number 2. The second leg involves mapping these

[00:11:37] engineers to the job roles of the companies that they have a contractual mandate to find.

[00:11:42] Number 3. Finally, training them for the role. As per our mandate tech companies can't

[00:11:48] say that they are going to get involved in a selection process. After we map out and

[00:11:53] prepare this engineer for them, we have followed this mandate with around 800 tech companies

[00:12:00] he adds. Bridge Labs takes the risk of a bad hire. To tech companies they come in as

[00:12:06] a talent solution partner. Our program management team is involved with their line managers to

[00:12:12] make sure that the perfect fit has happened. If it has not happened, we constantly nurture

[00:12:18] the engineer so that the perfect fit happens. The process from application to the foundation

[00:12:24] program to creating job-ready engineers for tech companies lasts 4 to 6 months. Explains

[00:12:30] Narayan. Today the venture claims that close to 6,000 engineers register with them every

[00:12:38] month of which close to 250 join their foundation boot camp. Practically we have a cohort starting

[00:12:46] every week. In the initial boot camp we have a 1-10 ratio of mentor mentee, the mentee

[00:12:52] learns first with the mentor, following which the former answers a given problem statement

[00:12:58] by themselves and learns. On the following day the mentor reveals the code of what the mentee

[00:13:04] has written. Every 10 days there is a day long workshop where mentors check whether mentees

[00:13:09] are able to apply their learnings or not. He says. When applicants come into the final

[00:13:15] boot camp the training becomes hybrid. The foundation program however is purely online.

[00:13:22] Once an applicant completes the entire process, the salary bracket for basic tech roles begins

[00:13:28] with 3 to 4 lakh rupees per annum. However it also depends on the technology roles they

[00:13:35] get. Candidates applying and getting through to advanced tech roles earn anywhere between

[00:13:41] 4 to 6 lakh rupees per annum and the deep tech roles pay freshers between 6 to 8 lakh

[00:13:48] rupees. He says.

[00:13:50] Changing nature of work There is no doubt that the recent pandemic

[00:13:54] has created a lot of change in the tech space. Narayan says, as a developer I always wanted

[00:14:01] my team to be right next to me. My mindset was I can't promise deliveries if I can't see

[00:14:07] my team next to me. The pandemic actually created a remote workforce. This has opened up

[00:14:13] plenty of opportunities. Now everybody is zused to working in a distributed

[00:14:19] and remote working setup where teams don't have to sit together. Before the pandemic this

[00:14:25] kind of scenario never existed, people can work from home office or it could be a hybrid

[00:14:31] model but it is no longer assumed that everybody is sitting together working in an office

[00:14:36] he says. The second change that the pandemic has created especially for women is that the

[00:14:42] companies now are a lot more flexible about their demands from employees. Take the example

[00:14:48] of bridge labs. Pre-COVID they expected all of their engineers to be working out of their

[00:14:53] officers in Bengaluru or Mumbai. So either their employees were residents in these cities

[00:14:59] or were asked to relocate there. Post COVID, they have engineers working out of cities like

[00:15:05] Vishakapattam for reasons including taking care of their families. This is actually what

[00:15:11] I see in tech companies today. They are open to a hybrid workforce, remote workforce and

[00:15:17] open to their employees giving only a certain percentage of their full time at work but they

[00:15:22] are actually making that room in their HR process to accommodate these different working

[00:15:27] conditions he adds. What can tech companies do to make things better? Tech companies today

[00:15:35] want a job ready fully employable workforce that is where challenges like retaining employees

[00:15:41] and addressing the attrition problem crop up. They need to change their mindset and look at where

[00:15:47] there is a larger talent pool available. As stated earlier 80% of our applicants are from tier 2 and

[00:15:54] tier 3 cities of which a good 40 to 50% are tech employable. How do we support this kind of

[00:16:00] workforce? He says India has a massive problem here. The country is going to have the world's largest

[00:16:07] workforce by 2030 with 120 million in the age group of 20 to 25 who need help to get jobs.

[00:16:15] Every company needs to find better ways of tapping into a younger workforce instead of saying

[00:16:21] that they want a productive engineer from day one. He adds.

[00:16:25] According to a report published by NASCOM last February 2022, India has emerged as a global hub

[00:16:32] for digital talent with over 5 million tech workforce. The industry recorded nearly 10% estimated

[00:16:39] growth in direct employee pool in FY 2022 e with the highest ever net addition of approximately

[00:16:47] 450,000 to its employee base. Narayan however notes even amongst the 5 million IT workforce in

[00:16:57] India only 30% are digitally tech ready. In other words most are working in a tech company but in

[00:17:04] a non-tech role. How can you get them back to tech roles? So I would urge all tech companies out there

[00:17:12] to look at the larger pool of engineers rather than the job-ready day one employable pool.

[00:17:18] Bridge Labs has constantly focused on the non-employable pool which we mold and create into a larger

[00:17:25] employable pool he adds. Part 2. Tech for women. Bringing them back into the workforce.

[00:17:34] Puja Bangar first met Tejas Kulkarni during their undergrad days studying computer science

[00:17:40] at Savitri Bhai Pune University. After graduating in 2015 they went their separate ways.

[00:17:47] Puja worked as a software engineer in a multinational company while Tejas left for the United Kingdom

[00:17:53] to study and eventually work there for a company called Adva Optical Networking based out of York.

[00:18:01] We were close friends who stayed connected. During our conversations we started discussing

[00:18:06] the problems India is facing when it comes to diversity in the workplace particularly on the

[00:18:12] question of giving opportunities to women. We spoke of how other countries like the UK and

[00:18:17] Germany are better adapting to instituting diversity in their companies. In my first job I had joined

[00:18:23] a very junior post but observed that women working in leadership roles like manager or senior manager

[00:18:30] faced many difficulties recalls Puja. At Cognizant she was assigned to work with a multinational

[00:18:37] investment banking company there she observed women weren't given the same number of opportunities

[00:18:44] as their male counterparts when it came to going on site for customer discussions. These opportunities

[00:18:51] were often given to male employees. Meanwhile at Adva Optical Tejas got the chance to travel

[00:18:58] with his colleagues to Munich, Frankfurt and many other cities in Germany. A company him on

[00:19:05] these work trips were many women from his organization. At his company he witnessed an attention

[00:19:12] to diversity and giving opportunities for deserving employees to travel irrespective of their gender.

[00:19:20] In the Indian tech industry this was definitely not the case as Puja recalls during our discussions

[00:19:26] Tejas and I always envisioned wanting to do something for women working in the tech industry.

[00:19:33] By the following year I quit my regular job and we established our own software company called

[00:19:39] Telemerge IT Services Private Limited and made our foray in the tech industry. We established an

[00:19:46] informal rule that we would give more opportunities to women in our company to identify how it goes

[00:19:52] before solving this problem for bigger tech companies in India. They encountered different

[00:19:58] challenges when it came to hiring women while running Telemerge they learned that women looking

[00:20:03] to rejoin the workforce after a sabbatical or maternity leave were hesitant to get a job

[00:20:09] in the tech industry because they felt trapped, found traveling a challenge and was struggling

[00:20:15] to strike a balance between household work and office work. We tried to identify such problems

[00:20:21] by March 2020 we created our own platform called SheWork.in, especially for women talent in India.

[00:20:30] As a priority we have created a community or a platform where a talent advocate

[00:20:35] stalked to women particularly those coming back to work after a sabbatical and helped them restart

[00:20:41] their careers. Explain Puja the biggest problem for us pre-pandemic was convincing companies to give

[00:20:49] remote work opportunities to women. In many ways the onset of COVID-19 was a major turning point

[00:20:56] for us because companies especially in the tech industry understood how remote work really works

[00:21:02] for them. This propelled SheWork to work on a larger scale, she adds. Over time they collaborated with

[00:21:10] companies like ZBIA, Tata Consultancy Services, Tech Mahindra etc. Today they are partnering with

[00:21:17] 150 to 200 companies of different scales. Who does SheWork assist? They are solving the problem

[00:21:26] of lack of women in the tech industry primarily in leadership or mid-level roles working on

[00:21:32] specified technologies so we are trying to work with developers or people in leadership roles

[00:21:40] with anywhere between 3 to 12 years of experience. We do have plans in the future to help women

[00:21:47] in other industries but as of today our vision is to try and solve the problem in the tech industry

[00:21:53] says Puja. Our main focus is not just to solve the problem for women talent, we also have to look

[00:21:59] at the companies who are going to hire them. Companies also have to trust women into giving them a chance.

[00:22:06] Our focus lies in balancing their respective needs she adds. What's particularly unique about

[00:22:12] SheWork is that they are focused on delivering well experienced talent for tech companies

[00:22:19] with a turnaround time of 24 hours. When we get a requirement from a company,

[00:22:24] we give them matching job profiles within 24 hours. Following this you have the standard hiring process

[00:22:30] by a company. Once the company completes their rounds of tests and interviews, the person who

[00:22:36] is selected joins the company within a day. We are focused on delivering the right job for the candidate

[00:22:42] and the right candidate for the company at the right time. Claims Puja.

[00:22:47] In terms of job profiles, we are focused on project managers, designers, mobile-based application

[00:22:53] developers, web-based application developers, the front-end, backend, full-stack developers,

[00:22:59] testers, etc. We want women to have more opportunities in tech. She adds.

[00:23:05] Another important point is that SheWork does not approach engineers fresh out of college.

[00:23:11] This is what also differentiates them from many job tech and ed tech companies in the space.

[00:23:17] We specifically work with women who have worked in the industry for at least three years,

[00:23:21] because that is where the problems of attrition start emerging. We cater to the problem where

[00:23:26] after three years of working in a tech job, the female employee decides to marry or prepare for

[00:23:32] motherhood. Takes us a bit and then decides to come back to the workforce. Our objective is to

[00:23:38] help her make her way back in, say, stages. Relevant skills re-skilling

[00:23:44] According to stages, the relevant skills that applicants require for tech jobs today are not

[00:23:50] defined. The technologies that IT companies use these days vary from one domain to another.

[00:23:56] Moreover, the industry is dynamic and versatile enough to support all technology experts.

[00:24:02] Advanced skills like the flavors of JavaScript, Python and legacy technologies are some of

[00:24:08] the new age technologies that many applicants are focusing on. What skills do applicants at SheWork

[00:24:15] commonly lack today and what should they do to pick them up? They just notes. To bring out what

[00:24:21] the applicants lack, let's dig a little deeper into the country, shifting our focus from Metro cities

[00:24:26] to tier two and tier three cities. Now, developers from these cities are equally capable of what

[00:24:33] developers in the Metro cities do, but they need more confidence, courage and communication skills.

[00:24:39] To overcome this, good exposure to corporate culture can help applicants navigate their career growth.

[00:24:45] Our task at SheWork is to help such talent navigate their careers.

[00:24:51] Meanwhile, for women who have left the tech job market for a while and are looking to return,

[00:24:56] Pooja has some ideas about what specific skills they should pick up. See, there are no specific

[00:25:02] skills that can be highlighted here, but keeping up with the evolving technology can help a lot.

[00:25:08] Apart from that, there is enough material on the internet to help women pick up where they left off.

[00:25:13] She says. Just to give an example, women in tech and planning to re-join the workforce can stay

[00:25:19] updated with the trend and make an impact. Blockchain technology or the growing AI technologies

[00:25:25] can be an ideal starting point. But the most crucial factor here is recognizing and choosing which

[00:25:31] technology they want to master and excel at. She adds. Meanwhile, for women planning to make a

[00:25:38] comeback into the tech workforce, Pooja also suggests that a good option would be to join her SheWork

[00:25:44] community. Such communities can help women understand the industry dynamics better and help them

[00:25:50] navigate their careers after a rough patch to start again. Also, it's always better to increase

[00:25:57] your professional network as you never know where the perfect opportunity might strike. She adds.

[00:26:04] In terms of salaries, Tejas believes there are no salary brackets that they can claim to deliver

[00:26:10] for women employees. It all depends on their experience, expertise, what kind of domain they are

[00:26:15] working in and the company's requirements. Salary brackets are defined based on these parameters.

[00:26:22] He notes. But as Pooja adds, we don't entertain explanations from companies that since a woman

[00:26:29] has come back from maternity leave, we will pay them a salary below industry or company standard.

[00:26:35] We encourage companies to evaluate her, offer her a job based upon her expertise.

[00:26:41] We give companies ample time to interview a person and take them through tests. Once they have

[00:26:47] been offered the job, we make sure that it's not below the company standards.

[00:26:52] Nature of work in tech? How it has changed? Tejas doesn't hide the fact that it's a struggle

[00:27:00] for women to return to the workforce in the tech industry, whether it's following maternity,

[00:27:05] relocation or post marriage activities. Mid-pandemic, there was definitely a boom in hiring.

[00:27:14] Initially, there was a boom in hiring more women because work from home has been triggered in

[00:27:19] India. The IT industry was looking for more talent, developers, testers etc., irrespective of gender.

[00:27:27] Women who had been on sabbatical earlier were now interested in coming back to the workforce

[00:27:33] because companies began offering the work from home. He says.

[00:27:37] Now, employees are requested to join the workforce at their office premises. This has created an

[00:27:44] environment where women employees are once again being filtered out. We are now seeing a

[00:27:49] trition on a day-to-day basis. Apart from that, I feel companies in India not adhering to the norms,

[00:27:56] take the example of maternity leave he claims. Government has mandated companies to provide paid

[00:28:02] maternity leave for six months. In competence of companies adhering to these norms are also

[00:28:09] forcing women out of the job market. During pregnancy or on the verge of child expectancy,

[00:28:15] women are often asked to resign or filter themselves out from the workforce. That is a significant

[00:28:21] contribution to reducing the number of women workers he adds. What more should companies do to

[00:28:28] accommodate women? Every company has their distinct style of working. Every company has different

[00:28:35] policies for their employees based on the nature of their work, culture and deliverables.

[00:28:42] Big tech companies have a very defined process in policy. Other than increasing the percentage

[00:28:48] of women employees in their companies, we haven't yet read about any specific policy rollouts

[00:28:54] for women. Says Pooja. But some mid-scale companies and funded startups like Zomato, Swiggy

[00:29:01] have rolled out policies to attract more women employees. They have announced menstrual leaves

[00:29:07] policies for their organizations. Some startups are giving opportunities to women where they can

[00:29:13] avail work from home. There's a lot of scope for companies to create a balanced work environment

[00:29:18] for women. She adds. They just notes, some companies have recently rolled out certain policies

[00:29:26] that support women employees like allowing them to bring their children to the office.

[00:29:31] They roll out programs like these once or twice a week, helping women employees establish

[00:29:35] a direct link between their home and office life. The situation is definitely improving in India,

[00:29:41] but companies must do more to provide a nurturing environment to increase the rate of female

[00:29:47] participation. Recently, she work also came up with their KinoCare program which is working towards

[00:29:55] bringing more women back into the workforce. It offers free health check-up camps for women

[00:30:00] IT professionals in association with partner companies. What more can applicants do?

[00:30:07] Tejas believes that there is more applicants can do to improve their chances of finding

[00:30:13] quality work in the tech industry. He uses the example of an employee at SheWork.

[00:30:17] Jigisha, a .net developer working with our company recently had a child.

[00:30:22] She took the mandated six months of paid maternity leave. Eventually she ended up taking a break

[00:30:28] of eight to nine months and during this time she re-skilled herself in tools like .net, dev ops,

[00:30:35] Microsoft Azure and regain her confidence as a full stack developer. Now she works at SheWork

[00:30:41] as a full stack developer while earlier she was just a .net developer. He claims

[00:30:48] he believes this is a good example of how women are utilizing their time also in terms of re-skilling

[00:30:54] and upskilling themselves during their sabbatical. Meanwhile, Pooja notes

[00:31:00] we are getting a lot of participation from the IT industry across technology stacks.

[00:31:05] We are receiving registrations from companies looking for engineers or developers familiar with software

[00:31:11] tools like Salesforce, BMC Remedy, Expo Tools and Surface now. But we have also noticed that there

[00:31:18] is very little female participation in these roles. We are trying to raise their participation.

[00:31:23] Also, we tie up with companies that are actually trying to build an inclusive workspace for women.

[00:31:30] The SheWork community has more than 25,000 members since their launch Pooja and Tejas claim that

[00:31:37] they have helped anywhere between 800 to 1000 women obtain quality job opportunities in the IT sector.

[00:31:46] We are doing this work as a profitable entity and our team is making serious efforts

[00:31:51] to help more women get the right employment opportunities. But we do not charge female applicants

[00:31:57] looking for tech jobs because that goes against everything we stand for. Any applicant can join

[00:32:03] our SheWork.in community for free. The moment she joins us, it is our primary duty to make her come back

[00:32:10] or rejoin the workforce, say stages. SheWork partners with companies that pay them a fee

[00:32:17] for onboarding and hiring employees. It's not a one-time fee. They pay us, we split that money

[00:32:24] with a woman who has got a job and we keep a percentage of it for operational purposes.

[00:32:30] In a month, we help hire an onboard about 100 to 200 women he adds. Making SheWork compatible for

[00:32:39] women employees. We always try to solve our problems first before jumping into solve other people's

[00:32:45] problems. We are focused on creating a team that will stay and grow with us for the long haul.

[00:32:51] By growth we mean career wise financially along with the company claims Pooja.

[00:32:57] When it comes to giving an opportunity to travel, take up leadership role, meet customers and

[00:33:05] attend some events. There is a common perception that you need to have certain years of experience

[00:33:11] in a given organization. SheWork does not believe in that notion. We believe in creating experience

[00:33:18] by giving opportunities. We have given opportunities to women who have just been there for months

[00:33:24] because we know that their expertise and potential will take us to the next level

[00:33:29] and represent our brand in front of others in a quality way. We have given them the opportunity

[00:33:36] to travel out of India, participate in expose, attend events, maintain stalls or even meet

[00:33:42] create the customers and our partners, claims stages. Also we aren't strict about the fact

[00:33:49] that employees who have joined a particular role must stick to it. They are given an opportunity

[00:33:55] to contribute in different domains where they would like to explore. He adds

[00:34:01] Another way in which sheWork has sought to create a congenial workplace environment for women

[00:34:06] is coming up with some interesting rewarding systems. Recently there was the hashtag quarter of

[00:34:13] women. Through this initiative we are covering the stories of all women employees in our team

[00:34:19] which will be showcased on our social media pages. This is a personalized celebration of our

[00:34:25] employees. Besides standard rewarding systems, initiatives like these help employees believe that

[00:34:32] the sheWork community is doing something for them and thereby some of them will be inclined to

[00:34:37] work with us for a longer duration. Say Spuja. Another important strategy in creating a congenial

[00:34:44] work environment includes ensuring a woman employee has all the opportunities she deserves

[00:34:50] for career advancement even after coming back from her maternity leave. We have roadmaps for

[00:34:57] these kinds of programs and processes and we understand the challenges of fulfilling these

[00:35:02] commitments. We have given our employees complete freedom to work from home. If employees need to

[00:35:08] work from home we are encouraging them to do so and also facilitating this process for them.

[00:35:15] This is an important step two. Says stages.

[00:35:19] Part three. When homemakers become financially independent.

[00:35:25] While 51 year old Minakshi Jhava from Kota Rajasthan had the passion for business,

[00:35:31] the responsibilities of running a household held her back. Today she and her daughter Ashwarya

[00:35:38] are founders of Ekater, a sustainable lifestyle brand that empowers other homemakers to earn a living.

[00:35:45] They recently bagged a shark tank deal of 20 lakh rupees for an equity of 20%.

[00:35:51] A women led business. Ekater has so far trained 32 homemakers from underprivileged backgrounds

[00:35:59] to make products like journals, pouches, bags, keychains and gift hampers among others.

[00:36:07] These are then sold on their website Amazon, Etsy and 26 physical stores. Meanwhile

[00:36:13] under their second life project the brand has recycled over 75,000 meters of fabric

[00:36:20] and turned them into handmade products. The concept behind Ekater was born when Ashwarya

[00:36:27] was a design student at Strysthe Institute of Design in Bengaluru. She recalls vividly,

[00:36:35] for my thesis I was working in Bidhar in Karnataka and it dawned on me that there are so many

[00:36:41] homemakers who have talents but no outlet. I also worked on several projects in Uttarakhand

[00:36:48] and Ladakh and noticed the same pattern. Whenever I interacted with local communities I would

[00:36:54] find that the women were extremely talented but confined to their homes. Even at my home I saw

[00:37:01] how my mother and grandmother had so much potential and skill that was going to waste.

[00:37:07] That is how Ekater was born. I wanted to make something using the available skill sets in home

[00:37:14] makers. She adds, in college she began building a business model and brainstorming a bunch of ideas.

[00:37:22] Initially I would make products such as journals and stick up pamphlets in college.

[00:37:27] After completing my course I took up a job in Pune as an urban planner. Ekater found its footing

[00:37:33] in 2019 when Fab India spotted us and gave us a huge bulk order. My mother then contacted

[00:37:41] homemakers from around our hometown in Kota to help us, she says. Ashwarya quit her job in 2021

[00:37:49] and moved back to Kota to give all her time to the business. From the very beginning she wanted

[00:37:56] to base the brand on three ideals, women empowerment, sustainability and delivering high quality handmade

[00:38:04] products. The brand makes products that are handcrafted with love and made using used fabric

[00:38:10] particularly woven cotton and other cotton products which are then upcycled.

[00:38:16] We want to minimize our waste production. Whatever waste is left we try to upcycle it into different

[00:38:22] products such as cutlery holders, bookmarks, postcards etc. As a brand we don't want a consumer

[00:38:29] to buy from us just because we are sustainable but also because of the quality of our products

[00:38:35] and for packaging we use bamboo and banana leaf paper. We source them from Jaipur and Bengaluru

[00:38:41] says Ashwarya. The brand trains homemakers for a week based on their existing skill set.

[00:38:48] Working with homemakers is a delight, they know half of the stuff we need help with such as

[00:38:54] stitching, packing, embroidery etc. With word of mouth they come to know about us and come on

[00:39:00] their own to avail training or be a part of the team she says. The women are from areas in and

[00:39:07] around Kota such as Bundi and Jhalava. Training homemakers. Minakshi meanwhile looks after production

[00:39:15] and procurement. Ekathra has also promoted three head artisans, Anjum, Arshi and Zishan who train

[00:39:23] the homemakers who come on board. Our clients have specific requirements,

[00:39:28] in handmade products exact procedural work is important. We have to maintain quality and standardization

[00:39:36] and thus introduce them to these facets of production. For example each handmade pouch or laptop

[00:39:43] sleeve has a certain uniqueness to it but quality and standardization are a must. In those seven days

[00:39:50] we teach homemakers these facets of production she adds. Ekathra does a lot of product customisation

[00:39:57] for clients too. Under Minakshi's supervision these head artisans teach homemakers processes like

[00:40:04] how to count inches if they are just given a few dimensions or how to pick up instructions from

[00:40:10] the internet. We also teach them how to handle complex machines since the equipment they have

[00:40:17] is often hand run. We introduce them to standardization of products and how to check quality,

[00:40:22] packaging and labeling. We also impart some of our knowledge or work ethic. After all we work

[00:40:30] on very stringent timelines with clients so if you promise something that has to be delivered

[00:40:35] in a certain time we teach them on how they can ensure results, explains Ashwarya.

[00:40:42] Under the second life project they upcycle whatever cloth and paper is left behind after

[00:40:49] the products are made. If the worker has five inches of fabric left we teach them to make a

[00:40:54] visiting card or a coaster. We teach them how they can minimise waste and attain quality.

[00:41:00] Of course they don't become masters of all these facets of production in one week,

[00:41:05] this is just an introduction. In due course of time they learn everything. We closely gauge whether

[00:41:11] they are able to do certain things because there is very little margin for major errors.

[00:41:16] Seisminakshi. Work from home. Helping home makers become financially

[00:41:23] independent particularly in quota and its surrounding towns and villages requires creating a work

[00:41:29] environment that suits their circumstances. Our decision to allow workers to work from homes

[00:41:35] stemmed out of understanding that these are people who can't necessarily afford domestic help.

[00:41:42] They need the luxury of working in their own time. Both options are open to our workers.

[00:41:47] They can either come to our workshop in quota and work here but many can't afford this so they

[00:41:53] take material from our workshop back to their houses, explains Ashwarya. If you have to give women

[00:42:00] a seat at the table you have to carve that around the practicalities of it.

[00:42:05] Lives changed. What's particularly unique about Ekater is how they have changed the lives of

[00:42:13] home makers they have employed. One of their workers, Fameda, lost her husband during the pandemic.

[00:42:19] He was the only earning member in their family. She was left with three daughters and one son to look

[00:42:25] after. Through word of mouth and relatives she got to know about Ekater. Today Fameda is able to

[00:42:33] afford her children's education. Another employee, Zaira recently bought a laptop and an electric vehicle.

[00:42:41] Anjum for example was very motivated to work at Ekater because she wanted to marry off her daughters

[00:42:48] into a good family and that required money since her husband wasn't well off.

[00:42:54] Beyond individual stories of redemption we have also seen the creation of a community of

[00:43:00] working women who have earned a modicum of financial independence and can lean on each other.

[00:43:06] Says Ashwarya. Are she has been working with the mother daughter duo for more than four years?

[00:43:15] She was one of the first home makers to come on board. She says,

[00:43:20] I train new home makers who want to join. Ashwarya and Minakshi's efforts have changed our lives.

[00:43:26] I was always fond of stitching an embroidery but I never got a platform. They provided me with

[00:43:32] the space where I could use that talent and earn. I don't think I would have been able to send my

[00:43:38] children to good coaching centers and schools if I hadn't met them. Making home makers an integral

[00:43:45] part of Ekater. My mother and my grandmother had lots of talent, skills and even motivation but there

[00:43:53] was no platform or opportunity available for them. There were a lot of circumstances pulling them

[00:44:00] in a thousand different ways. My mom would often tell me my life can't just be about cooking food

[00:44:06] for you guys or working around the clock for all your few. She did not enjoy the mundane

[00:44:11] repetition of all that household work, that stuck with me, recalls Ashwarya.

[00:44:17] When I moved to different remote corners of the country I understood that this pattern is just

[00:44:23] not limited to one community. To tell you the truth, it wasn't a very conscious choice for me

[00:44:30] to do something for women empowerment. It's only when I realized the kind of reminurative work

[00:44:35] that can be done specifically by people like my mother that I decided to work towards creating

[00:44:41] opportunities there. Why not try handmade products since those are something that could be made sitting

[00:44:47] at home? That's how all of this actually started out. She adds. With the stories that got associated

[00:44:55] with us we started believing more in that cause. It's just about that very small spark of creating

[00:45:01] that opportunity. These women are self-motivated and hardworking, says Minakshi. As for the future,

[00:45:09] Ashwarya says we want to focus on meeting the demand of products that we have. We are also in

[00:45:15] the training process to induce more homemakers. By June 2023 our number of homemakers is going

[00:45:22] to reach 50. Lessons learnt. Government policy on skilling and re-skilling Indians has been

[00:45:31] active. In the last budget, the government focused on setting up centers of excellence and

[00:45:36] industrial training institutes. In addition, the government also integrated the Atmanirbherr

[00:45:42] skilled employee employer mapping or a seam portal, matching supply of skilled workforce with

[00:45:50] the market demand and Eishram which according to the government is used for enrollment, registration,

[00:45:58] collection and identification of the required data of all the unorganised workers.

[00:46:04] According to the economic survey, the integration of these two portals resulted in a surge of more

[00:46:11] than 1 million registrations, of which 120,000 candidates have been shortlisted by employers for jobs.

[00:46:21] Of course these are all numbers cited by the government and require greatest scrutiny,

[00:46:25] but there is hope that government policy is having an impact.

[00:46:29] Nonetheless, in this year's budget, the government announced the launch of a unified skill

[00:46:35] India digital platform where the emphasis is on demand-based formal skilling linked with employers

[00:46:41] while also facilitating access to entrepreneurship schemes. Of greater significance, however,

[00:46:49] was the announcement of the Pradhan Mantri Karsal Vikas Yojana or PMKVY4.0 to skill lacks of fields

[00:46:59] within the next three years. According to the economic survey, more than 1 million

[00:47:04] citizens have been enrolled and trained since the inception of the PMKVY scheme in 2017.

[00:47:12] In the last edition, the survey claims that 740,000 citizens were getting skilled. Once again,

[00:47:19] these figures require closest scrutiny. The fourth edition of this scheme will emphasise

[00:47:25] on-job training, industry partnership and alignment of courses with needs of industry

[00:47:31] according to the government. They highlighted that the scheme will also cover new age courses for

[00:47:37] industry 4.0 like coding AI, robotics, mechatronics, IoT, 3D printing, drones and soft skills.

[00:47:49] These skills are currently in high demand in industry. What's promising about these policies is

[00:47:55] the emphasis on creating a demand-driven and industry-oriented skill development ecosystem.

[00:48:02] This is precisely what ventures like bridge labs are doing, all-bait with greater precision

[00:48:08] and collaboration with industry. Taking cues from ventures like bridge labs and she works,

[00:48:14] the government could and probably should encourage greater participation from industry

[00:48:21] in identifying skill gaps in emerging areas of technology and service sectors.

[00:48:27] Moreover, the industry could play a greater role in creating opportunities to learn on the job

[00:48:33] through internships and employment as well in collaboration with higher education institutions.

[00:48:41] Each of the entrepreneurs highlighted in this chapter have brought to life their own ideas

[00:48:47] of how to help ordinary Indians looking for quality jobs. While bridge labs have zeroed in on

[00:48:54] the requirements of tech companies and helps fresher engineers coming out of college to fulfil them,

[00:49:01] she work as a devised platform to help women find their way back into the workforce.

[00:49:07] Both solutions however require support from the larger ecosystem of tech companies,

[00:49:14] families and government policy. With the requisite support, these unique solutions will proliferate

[00:49:21] not only in the tech industry but also other sectors that require the emergence of such platforms.

[00:49:29] According to recent figures published by NASCARM, the Tech Industries Trade Association

[00:49:35] approximately 36% of the 5 million employees in the tech industry are women. Despite making up

[00:49:43] more than a third of the tech workforce, only 7% of women hold executive level positions.

[00:49:51] In other words, male employees end up with better opportunities, salaries and positions.

[00:49:58] This is why tech companies need to do a much better job in supporting women in the workplace.

[00:50:05] Meanwhile, in a report titled Women and Work, How India Fared in 2022, released by initiative

[00:50:13] for what works to advance women and girls in the economy or IW, W, A, G, E, there is a pretty

[00:50:22] telling finding. Working women often worry about failing at their perceived fair share of household

[00:50:29] duties and out of the female guilt of not being able to fulfill their traditional roles to the

[00:50:35] fullest, justify IPV or intimate partner violence or domestic violence more than other women.

[00:50:44] Approximately 47% of women in paid employment justified IPV.

[00:50:50] Notes the IW, W, A, G, E report.

[00:50:55] It's critical for families to do a better job of supporting women in the formal workforce.

[00:51:00] Women are perceived to be excellent managers of time but they can't be expected to do a stellar

[00:51:05] job of managing household to office work every day. They need support from their families.

[00:51:12] While the Aikatri example may seem out of place alongside two ventures looking to fill the jobs

[00:51:18] gap in the tech industry, there are commonalities that require close scrutiny.

[00:51:23] One standout commonality is the notion of how work from home helps greater participation of women

[00:51:31] in the formal workforce. Not all women have the luxury of growing up in a family or working in an

[00:51:38] environment that doesn't demand them to quit the formal workforce after a certain age.

[00:51:43] In those circumstances work from home is a great equalizer and solution that requires more fine

[00:51:50] tuning. Ventures in the tech sector and others where this can be done feasibly should encourage

[00:51:57] this mode of work further. It will take more than a generational effort to defeat India's deep

[00:52:04] seated patriarchal system where women are expected to manage the household affairs.

[00:52:10] In the meantime work from home gives women some leverage to remain in the formal workforce.

[00:52:16] The future of work in India must lean more into working from home and government policy should

[00:52:22] support it further. Igniting ideas for impact is an audiobook published by the Better India

[00:52:29] in association with Accenture India. Find out more about Accenture India's initiatives at

[00:52:39] slash IN-HIFEN-EN. Author Rhinjian Norbu Wangchuk edited by Divya Setu and Tanya Singh.