E-commerce, logistics companies’ diversity push drives demand for female workforce
festive sales push staffing requirements to unprecedented highs this festive season, companies are using the occasion to push ahead their diversity agenda.
At least half a dozen leading staffing firms, including Manpower, Randstad, Quess, TeamLease Services, Adecco and Persolkelly, told ET that there has been a big surge in mandates from companies to onboard more women on temporary as well as other roles.
New-age firms such as Flipkart, Ecom Express and Shadowfax are looking at enhancing the representation of women in their mid-mile and last-mile workforce — thus leading to a significant increase in demand for female warehouse and delivery personnel, said top company executives.
While sectors such as e-commerce, logistics and last-mile delivery are leading the pack, companies in apparel, fashion, luxury and lifestyle, health and wellness and beauty products also have a clear ask: to bring in more women.
They are being hired for customer services, logistics, customer relationship management, sorting and packing as well as in warehousing and hub operations.
“We have seen an increase of almost 3X in women hiring, especially in the festive season,” said Alok Kumar, senior director, Manpower.
“As we gear up for the festive season, we are looking forward to hiring more women in varied roles,” said Hemant Badri, head of supply chain, customer experience and re-commerce at the Flipkart Group, which employs about 20,000 women across supply chain functions, including team leaders, technology and automation experts and in last-mile delivery.
Mohan Sitharam, chief HR officer of Shadowfax said: “We see a business advantage of low attrition among women delivery partners.” Shadowfax has about 20,000 female delivery partners registered
