Auto sector: Time to shift gears

Poonam Singh is from a village in Uttar Pradesh where women rarely step out to work. And if they do, they take up jobs that are generally associated with women such as teaching or tailoring. But Singh was different: She was fascinated by machines from an early age and decided to follow her passion instead of treading a more traditional path. She joined the Maruti-certified Industrial Training Institute (ITI) where she learnt the nuts and bolts of the automobile world. Singh remembers the hands-on experience she gained on the latest cars and systems through factory visits, interaction with engineers, and a solid curriculum at ITI. At the end of it, she was a certified car mechanic who went on to land a job with a Maruti dealer’s workshop. “I have always done things girls typically do not do. Machines interest me and my experience at ITI has further fuelled my interest in cars and auto parts,” says Singh. “I never thought I would make a career in a male-dominated profession. But I got a good job and promotion at the Maruti Suzuki automobile service workshop”.

Singh is a rare example of a woman who’s made it in a sector that has traditionally been dominated by men. The Indian auto industry hasn’t been able to attract many women for either managerial or shop floor jobs, and if it has, few have risen to senior positions. Sure, you have some highprofile women in the business: Mallika Srinivasan, chairman and CEO of tractor maker TAFE; Harshbeena Zaveri, managing director and president of NRB Bearings, which makes auto components; and Sulajja Firodia Motwani, founder and CEO of Kinetic Green Energy & Power Solutions. But all of them are from families that own a significant stake in the companies they head. Industry data show only 15% of auto setor employees are women and most of them are in sales, marketing, human resource, logistics, administration, and finance. Those who do work on the shop floor are usually restricted to operations such as packaging. “A major factor behind the low count of women in the industry could be that certain kind of machines are difficult for women,” says Sanjay Kapoor, managing director of global leadership advisory firm Russell Reynolds Associates.

Such perceptions are indeed a big obstacle—not just in India but all over the world. People generally believe women aren’t strong enough for the shop floor and that automobiles are a man’s job. The numbers are telling. According to a report by Catalyst, a New York-based not-for-profit organisation that works on gender diversity at workplaces, only 26.7% women in the workforce are employed in the motor vehicles and auto equipment manufacturing industry in the U.S. The EU is even lower at 24%.

Anil Bhalla, a senior manager in a leading Indian auto company, says the industry has few women because it presumes that manufacturing is beyond their ken. He is candid enough to cite a personal anecdote. His daughter wanted to study mechanical engineering but he dissuaded her and she went for a business management course instead. She now works for an Indian IT giant in Britain. “Eventually she will have to quit to take care of other responsibilities,” he says.

So, it’s refreshing to see some women who’ve managed to successfully ride into the auto world. Take Sanghamitra Datta, one of India’s few automobile designers, for example. The National Institute of Design graduate runs her own automotive and aerospace designing company, Stylus Automotive, which designs everything from aircraft interiors and race cars to concept cars, trucks, and two-wheelers. Her journey began in 2001 as the only woman in an automobile designing class of 99 men at the Coventry School of Art and Design at Britain’s Coventry University. Once back in India, Datta landed a job at Tata Elxsi, the design arm of Tata Group, following a nine-month stint at Reva Electric Car in Bengaluru. “No doubt gender disparity exists. But the issue is created to a large extent by our families, parents, societies, especially our huge middle-class segment, where girls are not brought up to be tough, nor are they educated equally. Their talents too are not recognised in newer domains,” says Datta.

Though most cars are still designed by men, Datta has some company. Ramkripa Ananthan, the car design head at Mahindra & Mahindra, is the person behind one of the most masculine vehicles from the automaker’s stable: the cheetahinspired XUV500. The mechanical engineering graduate from BITS Pilani joined Mahindra’s Nashik factory in 1997 to design vehicle interiors and earned her spurs designing the interiors for the popular Bolero and Scorpio before she went on to head the team that designed the XUV500.

Why are there so few women in the driver’s seat in the automobile industry? In some ways, it’s a chicken-and-egg situation. Women say they don’t want to join the manufacturing sector because salary scales are tilted in favour of men and companies are reluctant to hire women who they feel have to juggle the dual responsibilities of a career and home. A survey by T. Muralidharan, chairman of talent acquisition and management company TMI Group, published in The Hindu showed that 78% of women with degrees in engineering opted for jobs in the IT hardware or software sector and only 9% took up hardcore engineering jobs. Muralidharan says jobs in areas such as design and production planning, which might have attracted many women, are limited in India because those functions are mostly handled overseas.

Policies are the other sore point. The few who do join are forced to quit because of the impact on worklife balance. Auto manufacturers are loath to recruit an employee who wants a nine-to-five schedule or to work from home. Most plants run in shifts, which is not easy for women to handle. Besides, there are regulations that bar women from working after 6 p.m. in certain jobs, restricting opportunities even further. To make matters worse, the incentive for women to work in such roles is zero. Instead, there’s a big gap in compensation. A report on salaries published by job search firm Monster India says there is a 30% difference between what men and women earn in the manufacturing industry.

But change is in the air. With growing awareness among companies that women bring fresh ideas and a more nuanced understanding of consumers, some of them are addressing the issue of gender diversity. Companies say hiring more women is good for the work culture. “Having more women employees makes the workplace more empathetic towards its employees’ needs, making the organisation more employee-friendly,” says Kinjal Choudhary, senior vice president and group chief HR officer of Eicher Trucks and Buses.

Tata Motors, Eicher, and India Yamaha Motor are some of the auto companies driving the change. Around five years ago, two-wheeler maker India Yamaha Motor hired 200 women, put them through an apprenticeship programme, and placed them in assembly-line jobs at a plant in Uttar Pradesh. With various women-friendly policies in place, the company plans to hire more for its shop floors, taking their number to 2,600 by 2018. Tata Motors has also been increasing the number of women in its car and truck manufacturing divisions. It had added 800 women on the shop floor over the past eight months, taking the total to 2,500 women altogether. The Prima truck assembly line has an all-women section to fit and test electrical components.

Tata Motors has also been working on women-friendly policies. In December 2012, it rolled out a six-month maternity break for women and it has other initiatives such as Tata SCIP (Second Careers. Inspiring Possibilities), which helps female employees get back to work after a sabbatical, and GearUP, in which mentors help mid-level women managers build on their strengths. “Our diversity journey is built on the foundation of creating an ecosystem that is attractive to women and enables them to succeed,” says Gajendra Chandel, chief human resources officer, Tata Motors.

Still, changing mindsets remains a big challenge. According to a blog post on the Tata Motors website, the company faced strong resistance from employees when it inducted women employees on the shop floor. The HR and plant heads had to step up communication with the employees to ease the tension. Apart from breaking stereotypes, the industry also needs more women at a senior level. Zaveri of NRB Bearings insists on having women in senior positions, saying hiring at the junior level is not enough. According to her, a truly gender-neutral workplace is where women are “able to do what they enjoy and love, have a sense of self respect, and be in a position to influence policy-making”.

(The article was originally published in December 2017-March 2018 special issue of the magazine.)