One of the biggest social challenges faced in the corporate sector is the retention of women employees. However, it is seldom realized that the corporate sector is blindsided by the needs and requirements to make working spaces conducive for women. [24]7.ai, a company that is redefining customer experiences with conversational AI, is also redefining the workspace for women. Awarded with several accolades, including ‘Top 50 Best Workplaces in India for Women’ by Great Places to Work, two years in a row, is a testament to the company’s unwavering efforts towards creating inclusive workspaces. [24]7.ai has also been recognized as the ‘India Winner 2020’ and the Asia Pacific First Runner Up 2020 in the COVID-19 Action category by the United Nations in the UN Women Asia-Pacific WEP Awards ceremony. Selected from among 400+ organizations across 17 countries, this award felicitates [24]7.ai’s exemplary efforts to uphold and practice UN Women Empowerment Principles and promote gender equality and women empowerment during COVID-19.

Tell Us About [24]7.AI And The Company’s Approach Towards Creating A Culture That Supports Gender Equality?
Gender equality is integral to the DNA of [24]7.ai and a way of life for all our people. We believe that our organization should reflect the rich array of diverse backgrounds and perspectives that exist in our society because it leads to improved thinking, brings different views to the table, leads to better and more holistic decisions, and therefore results in overall better performance in all aspects. To achieve this, every individual in the organization, irrespective of their gender must feel equally included and confident to participate in and contribute to every aspect of the organization.

Secondly, gender equality is a journey, not an initiative. Our goal for this financial year is to have 35-40 percent women in the workplace. Every manager across the organization owns this KRA. We are prioritizing and addressing all opportunity areas within the organization to enable this goal revamping processes and introduce new policies and practices to where required to help make this happen. In the following years, we will sustain, and improve on our strategies with further expansion of scope. and specific milestones. We have laid out a 3-year strategy that aligns & inspires the entire organization towards a common vision.

We have rejuvenated SHAKTI, our gender diversity program that strategizes to bridge the gender gap through sharp & focused hiring, development, and retention programs for women. We organize women only hiring drives with partners. To provide equal opportunities to women from every part of the society, such hiring drives are conducted in the North-Eastern States. We provide an array of facilities that ensure a safe and secure work environment for women. We facilitate accommodations, provide transportation with security, creche for mothers returning to work, etc. We also provide flexi/part time options for women who cannot take up full time jobs. Due to the pandemic, this initiative has helped empower and create new opportunities for many women to resume work from home. With our efforts and initiatives, we have been able to take our entry level hiring penetration to>45% in recent months from 33% in FY 20 and our Lateral Hiring penetration to 43%, so far.

Women able is an initiative that creates a powerful pool of emerging women talent and leaders for us every year. We have also recently received the DivHersity Award for this initiative for Women Development.

It Is Commendable That [24]7.AI Has Created Such Space In Corporate Sector For Women To Feel Welcomed. But How Did You Create This Culture Within Your Organization?
Our leadership reinforces the organization’s strong commitment to this cause through measures such as equal pay for work of equal value, zero tolerance against harassment at workplace, thorough focus on work-life balance and providing job security. This builds trust, that is fundamental to any relationship, whether individual or organizational.

Over the 20 years of our evolution, we have built a unique culture which we fiercely protect and constantly reinforce through our words and actions. We measure its success by the voice of our people. When our employees unanimously use the words ‘home’ and ‘family’ to describe the workplace, when they say that their years at [24]7.ai are the best and happiest years of their careers, it speaks of ultimate trust. For example, we have a unique benefit called ‘Gift of Time’ where employees can assist another employee in case of serious ailment/illness by transferring a maximum of 60 leaves, over and above the leave entitlement. We ensure that the compensation for our employees is decided basis meritocracy and never any other parameters such as gender. We take great pride in the fact that many of our critical functions are headed by women.

We also firmly believe that organizations must contribute to sustainable growth by working with the community and giving back to society. Some of the projects we are working on to empower women in the society that we operate in are The Educate Girls Global Foundation project and the Nirmalaya project, undertaken to ensure education of girls and sanitation in girls’ schools to address one of the biggest reasons why girls drop out of school.

How Does [24]7.AI Ensure Their Female Workforce Grow With The Company And Stay Updated With Latest Tech, Or Up-Skill Themselves?
All our employees including our female employees are provided with a clear visibility to a structured career path and growth opportunities within the organization. They are exposed to a robust learning and development portfolio of management and strategic programs. Our OD initiatives focus on constantly building and reinforcing their functional and behavioral capabilities at every level for more holistic development opportunities.

They have a range of choices for career progression be it operations, functions orglobal mobility. Our structured LEAP – Leadership Education and Advancement Program – is a commitment to help them reach their full potential. It helps them build and hone the right skills to perform well in their roles while also equipping them for growth through programs such as Womenable, Leaders Teach Leaders, and more. Womenable, as mentioned earlier, is a unique year-long program designed to help build our next generation of women leaders for the organization. As part of this, we also have special tie-ups with Christ University at Bangalore to equip them with management and other key certification options. Other programs such as ASPIRE are focused on life skills, professional attributes and overcoming self-limiting beliefs.

We leverage our internal communication channel to spot opportunities and latest trends. We also collaborate with multiple institutions to participate in conferences where industry leaders share their expertise to give our people external exposure and cross-learning from others. We provide a variety of learning opportunities by collaborating with various distance educational institutes for value-based degrees, with the feasibility of online training.

Nina Nair, Senior Vice President & HRD Head - India & Americas, [24]7.AI
Nina oversees HR and Learning & Organizational Development (L&D and OD) across India and Americas for [24]7.ai’s services side of the business. `Prior to her current association with [24]7.ai, Nina was the Chief People Officer at Indian Institute for Human Settlements. She was also actively involved with and served on the Board of the Live Love Laugh Foundation, an organization that focuses on Mental health awareness and the de-stigmatization of mental Illness. She was a teacher for 16 years prior to coming into the Corporate world. She has a Degree in Economics and a degree in Education.

Susmita Malik, Vice President - HR India, [24]7.AI
Susmita has nearly 30 years of professional experience in HRM with industry leaders in IT Education and IT/ITES industries. Prior to [24]7.ai she was with Genpact and NIIT. An MA in English Literature from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, holds a PGCHRM from XLRI Jamshedpur, CPLP from ATD, Business Leadership Certification from Duke University and IMM Ahmedabad and certification in the CSR India program from Harvard Business School.