IDF' India Diversity Job Fair 2021 provides a significant boost to Corporate India's Diversity Hiring

New Delhi [India], August 31 (ANI/SRV Media): India, 31st August 2021: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. presents India Diversity Job Fair 2021 (IDJF2021), a mega diversity job fair aimed at boosting corporate India's diversity hiring successfully concluded on the 28th of August.

IDJF 2021 with 30 Diversity Hiring Partners and with more than 350 vacancies listed received more than 5000 registrations. With the theme Equal Opportunity For All this virtual job fair witnessed more than 2500 candidates participate over the course of two days. IDJF2021 also had more than 15 renowned business and HR leaders deliberate on the various aspects of diversity hiring in the IDJF Summit that ran concurrently on the first day of the job fair.

Priyaranjan Jha, Managing Director, PepsiCo Hyderabad delivered the Keynote Address at the first virtual edition of the India Diversity Job fair. Speaking on the 'Why is it important to have a Diversity Recruitment Strategy' Jha said "More diverse companies, are better able to win top talent and improve their customer orientation, employee satisfaction, and decision making, and all that leads to a virtuous cycle of increasing returns"

Sharing how Zee is driving its D & I agenda Animesh Kumar, President - HR & Transformation, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. shared "At Zee we have given ourselves an ambitious target of doubling our diversity numbers at all points of the organisation from currently at about 25% to 50% by 2025." Kumar further elaborated "The way we are setting that up is by focusing on three pillars, first is increasing talent supply, second is working on both the conscious and subconscious biases and third is focusing on both the soft as well as the hard infrastructure."

Replying to the question on why leaders do not intentionally strategize to make work cultures inclusive and why does proper planning and implementation in the right spirit become such a challenge, Gautam Chainani, Group President Human Resources - Strategic Initiatives & Workforce Automation, JSW said "We have over engineered ourselves on the rationale part of diversity. I look at intentions from two angles one is the rationale part and emotional part. And I think we have over engineered the rationale part of it for example there is so much emphasis on targets there is so much emphasis on KPIs and KRAs." Chainani explained "Many CXOs have diversity KPI in their goal sheet and when you deep dive into it that number is probably 5% or 10%. Now 10% weightage on a KPI or KRA does not bring about much shift. So while there is certain amount of intention from the rationale side, I think the emotional intention continues to be missing."

Speaking on how organisations can make diversity a reality, Raj Raghavan, Senior Vice President and Head of Human Resources, IndiGo (InterGlobe Aviation Ltd) said "Organisations need to integrate diversity with the business, anything that is not integrated with the business doesn't get the immediacy it perhaps may deserve. When you integrate your overall D & I philosophy with that of how you run your business, then it kind of works as well as it ever can."

Rishi Kapoor, Head - Management Committee, India Diversity Forum in his welcome address set the context of the day. Kapoor said "This two day job fair is our effort in making a difference in the employment fabric of India based on the fundamentals of diversity, equity and inclusion". Kapoor further added "With the theme Equal Opportunity For All is reflective of the fundamentals of an ideal employment culture. If a candidate has the qualification and the skills to perform a job, and perform well at that, then he/she should not feel restricted by certain boundaries defined and decided consciously and unconsciously by society and recruiters."

IDJF Summit 2021 saw HR stalwarts engage in various discussions throughout the summit. The IDJF Summit 2021 speaking panel included Anisha Motwani, Founder & Director, STN Ventures, Ankit Bansal, Founder & CEO, Sapphire Human Solutions, Avantika Susan Nigam, Director & Head HR, PepsiCo Hyderabad, Bhavna Kumar, Director HR, Deutsche Bank, Ekta Singh, CHRO, AGS Health, Ganesh Chandan, CHRO, Tata Projects, Pallavi Poddar, Regional HR Director - India, Middle East and Africa, Ingersoll Rand, Praveen Menon, Chief People Officer, IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company Ltd, Renu Bohra, CHRO, Schenker India Pvt. Ltd, Dr. Ritu Anand, Chief Leadership & Diversity Officer, TCS, Suchitra Kerkar, Region Head and VP - People n Culture APAC and China, Vestas, Sudha Ravi, CCO, Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Ltd., Vidyottama Sharma, Editor-in-Chief, India Diversity Forum.

India Diversity Job Fair (IDJF), an initiative by India Diversity Forum (IDF) is off to a great a start to promoting and enhancing diversity hiring in corporate India. India Diversity Forum, a Section 8 company, is a company agnostic and industry agnostic body formed to further the cause of diversity, equity and inclusion in India. IDJF was organized and executed in partnership with Sapphire Connect, India's premium B2B event specialist.

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