With a majority of women in its CSR committee, DHL Express stresses on the importance of gender inclusivity and equality not only in its CSR projects for women entrepreneurs, but also within the organisation. In an exclusive interview with TheCSRUniverse, Ms Anjali Bhadbhade, CFO, DHL Express India, shares the group's vision and plans on the actualization of women empowerment through CSR. Here are some excerpts from the interview...
Q: What has been your organization’s contribution towards the cause of women empowerment?
A: DHL Express believes in a diverse and inclusive culture, which is evident in our hiring programs and in our CSR projects. We work on numerous initiatives with NGOs to promote women empowerment and assist the education of young girls, thereby playing a role in developing a brighter future.
We've created a flagship project to help 100 women become entrepreneurs. As part of the initiative, we have built a center, where these women are trained to make jewelry. The program also assists women in developing market connections, understanding the banking system, and establishing their businesses. DHL Express specializes in assisting businesses to expand their presence across borders. We hope that by working on this project, we will be able to support these women at every stage of their business's global expansion.
DHL has set a global goal of achieving zero emissions in the logistics sector by 2050. As part of this initiative, we also participate in plantation projects across the country. Farmers, including women, are one of the most significant beneficiaries of this initiative. On their agricultural grounds, fruit-yielding plantation drives are held, and the proceeds aid to improve their income. They are also educated and informed about optimum farming techniques and market linkages through the program. The program also creates opportunities for daily wage laborers who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic through plantation drives. This initiative benefited 636 women farmers and daily wage laborers in 2021.
DHL understands the importance of supporting girls' education to ensure a secure future. As part of this, we support educational programs to boost their learning outcomes and overall development. In 2021, we sponsored the education of 155 girls studying in Satya Bharti School as well as those part of NGO SUPPORT’s residential program. In addition to this, we supported the stipend and training cost for 17 female Teach for India fellows. 733 girls have been further taught and supported in their holistic education by these female colleagues.
Q: Where is Gender Equality and Inclusivity in the scheme of CSR for women empowerment? How are organizations implementing and including the above two to ensure the same?
A: The recent pandemic has profoundly shocked our communities, highlighting society’s dependence on women at work and at home and exposing the structural inequalities that have disproportionately impacted women and girls. Considering this scenario, organizations mostly stress on supporting programs on women empowerment as part of their corporate social responsibility. However, I feel that the change needs to come from within. Organizations need to change their employment strategy and make this part of their business. As for our CSR projects, we have opted a mixed approach. We have programs that are only designed for women and then there are projects where the focus is on the community.
DHL takes Diversity & Inclusion seriously. To this tune, we have set up a D&I council that is working on providing employment opportunities to Persons with Disabilities as well as looks at improving the gender ratio in the organization. DHL also runs a global program called DHl4All which helps us make the most of every employee’s strengths and empowers our entire network to the best it can be. It is this approach which has helped us achieve a respectable diversity across departments and now our focus is on increasing diversity in the frontline operations.
Q: How do you ensure that the benefits reach the actual target group- the women?
A: We work with NGOs to ensure the proceeds directly go to the beneficiaries. Our projects are designed in a way that provide the required skills and training to beneficiaries, thus empowering them for a better and brighter future. For instance, we run a program on supporting women entrepreneurs. The focus of this is to train women with required skills, support them with bank loans as well as provide market linkage to help them set up their own business. This ensures that the beneficiaries are directly getting the support needed. The plantation drive supports women farmers and daily wage laborers who are the sole earning members, thus making them financially independent. We also help in education and capacity development of young girls through our Go Teach programs, allowing them to find better income opportunities.
Q: What are the CSR monitoring mechanisms that DHLE follows?
A: For our project which focuses on women beneficiaries, we have set up a center at Gautam Buddha Nagar in Greater Noida. We are building women entrepreneurs by training them on jewelry making. After a baseline study conducted by the NGO, these women were selected to understand their interest and qualification. As part of the program, trainings are conducted for women to understand the best practices to set up a business as well as build market linkages.
Before undertaking any project, we conduct a due diligence on the NGO to understand their purpose. There is clear communication between the NGO and us to ensure that there is alignment on the beneficiaries. NGOs provide us details of each beneficiary who can be later contacted for feedback or further support. Our employees also interact with the beneficiaries as part of volunteering activity. We do not stop at just funding the project, but monitor the progress step by step, by conducting site visits as well as monitoring project progress through quarterly and annual reports.
Q: Most of the organizations focus on providing skill development only in micro-entrepreneurial ventures like handicraft, art, and beauty related ventures. There is a need to expose them to alternative and more ambitious career choices too. How can this be achieved?
A: It is certainly important not to confine females to certain positions only. There is an urgent need to understand the seriousness of the term ‘equality’ and expose women to other and more ambitious career choices. It is seen that many organizations limit skill development of women to micro-entrepreneurial ventures. We, as a society have assigned certain roles to both the genders. For example- even though our country is progressing, seeing a male cook in the house is still not accepted in our society. I feel that promoting women to aim for bigger opportunities, conducting training sessions, setting equal targets at par with men are some of the measures through which this equality can be achieved.
It’s a deep social change and with focus from corporates, policies and most importantly creating more and more women role models, will help us expedite this social change.
Q: How can the social sector stakeholders ensure easy access to healthcare needs of these women, as they are the most deprived when it comes to nutrition, and health?
A: Social sector stakeholders play a key role in ensuring easy access to the healthcare needs of women. They can do so by uplifting them through better education facilities specifically on topics about health and granting them maternity leaves. It is important to address the disparities in insurance coverage for women and take measures towards improving them for a healthier society. In addition to this, arranging workshops or camps on health can help spread awareness on health.
Q: How important is it for social sector stakeholders to sensitize each other, and the public in general towards the women community? Are you running any projects that will help secure the future and position of women in society?
A: Social sector stakeholders are mirrors to the society. They showcase and improve upon the conditions of various entities in the society. Women empowerment and sensitization of the society towards the plight of women, is critical to ensure the health and social development of families, communities and countries. Sensitization of social stakeholders will allow women to rise above numerous clutches such as geographical setting (urban/rural), social status (caste and class), educational status, age factor, economic opportunities, health and medical assistance, and political participation.
DHL’s flagship program enabling 100 women to become entrepreneurs not only focuses on upskilling, but also equips women with establishing market connections, understanding credit systems, government schemes, managing finances and achieving profit through their businesses. This program along with numerous other programs run by DHL will contribute towards building a just, socially equal society.
Q: What are your expectations from the Government in terms of policies for women? What is your reaction to the Budget 2022, and the proposal for increasing the marriageable age for women from 18 to 21?
A: Our government realizes the importance of Nari Shakti and therefore, women empowerment was a key focus of the budget this year. As mentioned by the Finance Minister, two lakh Saksham anganwadis will be upgraded in 2022. I feel this is a great step towards gender equality, providing better opportunities and infrastructure for women growth and development. It will assist them in recovering and growing through the generation of economic opportunities.
When we talk about gender equality and women empowerment in our country, we cannot simply dismiss the topic of marriage, which is a key conversation in Indian households. I feel that it is very important for every woman to have the right to choose when they want to get married. An 18-year-old is often not eligible or educated enough to make this decision for herself. The government’s proposal is in the right direction and the starting block to bring about a sea change in the thought process of the society.
Q: According to the KPMG CSR Survey Report 2019 – 62 percent of the top 100 Indian origin companies have a woman member on their CSR Committees. What has brought about this development?
A: I think, principally we are seeing a trend where women are holding key positions in an organization. Be it CSR or Diversity & Inclusion councils, women have been leading from the front to bring about the change they want to see. At DHL, for instance, of the 4-member team working on CSR projects, 3 are women. Even our implementing agency has an all women team handling our CSR projects. We have been working on this model for a few years now as DHL has a culture of promoting gender diversity and inclusivity at the workplace. We at DHL believe that diversity of our workforce is a key success factor. Their different experiences –personal, cultural and intellectual – make them a strong interface to our customers.
In fact, Deutsche Post DHL Group has continually increased the percentage of women in middle and upper management positions around the world since 2014, achieving a current rate of 23.2 percent. The Group plans to extend its efforts further to enlist at least 30% of female staff in its management roles by 2025.
I feel gender diversity on CSR committees improve charitable giving, community engagement, and employee recognition. Today, companies also realize that to serve a certain section of society, it is very important to have a representative working towards it. If we hire women on the CSR committee, they will be able to better understand what other women need and help support the program. I am happy to see this change.
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