Achi news desk-
Some companies are also changing their policies to accommodate them and training trans employees, working for them in more roles and even paying a higher stipend for hormone therapy they may need.
Reflecting wider society’s changing attitude towards transgender people, Indian businesses are increasingly employing them, seemingly setting a welcome change of inclusion despite small numbers. Among the companies that have started including them in their permanent workforce are Tata Steel, RJ Corp and Publisis Sapient, The Economic Times reported.
Some companies are also changing their policies to accommodate them and training trans workers, filling more roles for them and even paying a higher stipend for hormone therapy they may need.
Tata Steel, a company that has been consistent in its CSR efforts over the years, employs more than 100 transgender workers and is set to hire at least 50 more. “Tata Steel currently has 106 transgender people working across the board,” a company spokesperson told the newspaper.
The 117-year-old Indian steelmaker undertook a drive in February this year to recruit transgenders and the journey is still ongoing. The company received over 300 inquiries.
Another company that is preparing to be more inclusive in its employee policies is Publicis Sapient, one of the largest advertising companies in the world. She trained transgender employees employed in Israel through special drives such as the rainbow internship. “The trans profiles we are looking for are not limited to one field, but span across various fields including operations, human resources, marketing, engineering and product management,” Vishka L. Dutta, senior director, diversity, equity, inclusion, for India and APAC at Publicis Sapient told the paper.
ESL Steel is a company that is part of the Vedanta Group. She outlines a plan for hiring transgender employees who are supposed to be placed in the company’s administrative/security positions. It has no transgenders now. “We expect to hire two transgender employees at ESL in the upcoming fiscal year 2024-25,” said Hirod Kumar Barik, Deputy CHRO at ESL Steel.
A significant development is that most employers offer health insurance benefits to transgender employees. Extended benefits include gender confirmation surgery and hormone replacement therapy. “Our stipend for upskilling training programs is definitely higher for trans people than the other stipends we offer to other industrial trainees…by almost 300%. That’s because a lot of trans people are on hormone therapy,” said Akshay Tyagi, head of diversity, Equality, Inclusion, the Lalit Suri hosting group for the newspaper.
Companies seem to be building policies around transgender people. In 2022, InHarmony, a diversity, equity and inclusion consultancy, worked with only one manufacturing company on transgender inclusion. Today, it has received the same mandate from four major organizations.
Anupama Easwaran, founder of InHarmony revealed that while many companies used to conduct transgender sensitization programs for their employees only during Pride Month, now they organize such sessions every month. Other incentives that companies extend to transgender employees include insurance coverage for cohabiting and bisexual partners, employee assistance programs. Internal mental health helplines are also extended to LGBTQ+ employees. Other initiatives include gender-neutral services in offices and gender-neutral policies.
“In 2023, we embarked on a journey to create active employment opportunities for the transgender community and foster an inclusive work environment. As we look ahead to 2024, we are eager to build on our progress and open more doors for employment within our manufacturing and sales functions for transgender people,” Varun Jaipuria, Executive Vice Chairman of Varun Beverages, which is PepsiCo’s largest franchise outside the US. , he told the newspaper.
InHarmony’s Easwaran thinks the government’s equal opportunities policy is pushing companies to consider more inclusive policies on this front. In February, the center formulated an equal opportunities policy for the transgender community. Among other things, it prohibits revealing the gender identity of a transgender person without the person’s consent.
Published: March 29, 2024, 10:30 am IST
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