Firms offer flexi hours, office drop to retain female staff

MUMBAI: With organisations asking employees to return to office, commuting to and fro, especially for women who manage dual responsibilities of managing children and households, has become tougher.
Some organisations have allowed flexibility to enable employees to manage work-life through staggered timings. RPG group is not hard and fast about what time employees punch in.Women workers can take a cab ride home if they happen to get stuck at office beyond 8pm. Supratik Bhattacharyya, chief talent officer, RPG, said: “We do not encourage late sitting, but if women colleagues occasionally have to do so for any exigencies, then we ensure their transportation back home is taken care of.”
Bhattacharyya said at times when there is a problem in commuting to office—due to heavy rain or a festival—the organisation allows them to work from home. As a policy at RPG, employees irrespective of gender can work remotely up to 50% of the time.
At Motilal Oswal Financial Services (MOFSL), office timings operate in shifts depending on the role of the employee. MOFSL has reverted to work-from-office barring the IT function where a hybrid option is available based on the role. Specifically for women employees—who form 35% of MOFSL’s total strength of around 5,500 employees in Mumbai—transportation facility is available if they are held up late at work. Managers are sensitized to ensure women employees have reached home safely, said Niren Srivastava, group CHRO, MOFSL, who justifies the company’s plan to move back to working from the office premises.
“Managing productivity at a mass level in financial services is a tough task. Hybrid or remote working do not help. However, we have staggered timings so that people can manage their commute to work. To help them better manage work-life balance, we are also planning in October a ‘switch off’ at 7:30pm wherein all systems will shut down after a grace period of 45 minutes for employees to end their work,” said Srivastava.
“For us, the biggest stamp of comfort that this is a convenient and safe place for women workers is that our gender diversity ratio is 35% women in Mumbai. A majority of these women work in our stockbroking division which is aligned with market hours and thus no flexibility can be offered. Once Mumbai’s infrastructure catches up to cater to the requirement, commuting experience should also improve,” said Srivastava.