Cummins takes lead on gender front

If the country was the harbinger in breaking age-old gender bias in the workplace, the manufacturing sector too is making giant strides in gender equality in workplace. And while services sector has been attracting increasing number of women professionals, those who take to the shopfloor as a career too is growing.

Interestingly, none have any qualms about being engaged in work which has traditionally been the man's job. Sheetal Khilare, 24, is a mechanical engineer with diesel engines major Cummins India. Her job in the factory's heavy assembly department, she puts together huge engine components using automatic and manual tools and gadgets.

"Not once in the two years i have spent here have I found myself lacking in physical toughness," she says. According to her, the thinking that women can't handle heavy engineering jobs is now outdated. "We have proved that we can do as much works as men and give equal or even better output," Sheetal quips.

Thanks to education and broader social outlook more and more women are taking up engineering as their career. This has also evinced the employers' interest as they look at living by the latest tag of "equal opportunity employer."

Harsimran Singh, Cummins' vice president (HR) says, "Diversity enables people to work efficiently and effectively together. Implementing diversity can often encourage teamwork. It is not Just about gender or colour. It is about using the differences and similarities among people to improve productivity and performance. Diversity is about enhancing business performance by bridging the workplace and the market place with diverse talent and partnerships and valuing uniqueness and differences in a multi-cultural workforce "� making it an inclusive work environment".

Concurrs Sarika Panhalkar, a mechanical engineer working for Cummins in the pressure and testing section.

"The colleagues and superiors never let me feel I am someone different. That way I feel very comfortable and encouraged to perform better," she says. While Bhairavi Desale "� an instrumentation engineer "� is in charge of maintenance at the company's assembly plant, Kalpana Talhar looks after the testing of one of Cummins' prestigious range of engines "� Quantum.

In the same league is Preeti Raykar, a project engineer with alcohol technology company Praj Industries. As a member of the electrical and instrumentation division, she has to spend time at sites while a plant is being commissioned. She was never unnerved at being the sole woman member of the team.

Juggling work, house and child pressure, Preeti says, "The way I see my advantage of being a woman is the ability to multi-task. I am back from work at 10 in the evening whenever we have projects on hand, which happens very often. I am up to any mental challenge, however tired I may be." Having proved her mettle to withstand pressures on domestic projects, Preeti is set to go on her first business trip abroad.

The numbers also bear out the enthusiasm demonstrated by employees and employers. While Cummins increased its women employees from 30 in 2002 to 116 in 2005, Praj Industries say they want to increase this number regularly.

Rajendra Ghare, Praj's vice president (HR), says "We look forward to employ more of women staff as we are an equal opportunity employer. We make sure that women are sent only to those business projects which we consider safe and friendly," He added, " To ensure a clean and healthy workplace we have introduced policy on prevention of sexual harassment." Cummins too makes it women employees aware of such issues and has made it a part of their induction training.