As the first quarter of a brand new year comes to a close, questions turn into squatters in my head. In the spirit of community living, I welcomed them to come have a sit-down, discuss how we can benefit from sharing space and organize a win-win co-livin! In my endeavor to create/support equal-opportunity workplace cultures, here are some broad questions I’m currently mulling over:

1. What is the ground reality of an employee who is not a member of the alpha tribe? (Higher class and caste, mostly not migrated, able bodied, heterosexual men)
2. What are the gaps between efforts of inclusion made by companies and their impact? What does the timeline of that change look like?
3. What does the road ahead look like?

Our interactions with a multitude of mid and small-sized organizations this Women’s Day brought us to a different demographic of corporate India, one that doesn’t mostly make it to the headlines of Diversity & Inclusion news and reviews. They are distant from the main hullabaloo. The HR personnel we met were mostly women; the meetings we had were usually post lunch, slotted for an hour. But every single one of them turned out to be an  average of two hours. Yes, I am perpetuating the stereotype.

You see, often women get treated in one of the two ways: either as someone to be served, protected and kept at a respectable and safe distance, or as someone to be conquered, won and consumed. Seldom do we get a tête-à-tête, or a collaborative space to be equal contributors for collective change. We are constantly realizing that we have something to say… and are asking for the mic. Some are getting up and grabbing it at local spoken words and stand-ups in the style of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, some are serving as teachers in their closest circles of influence, some are creating art, some are asking for changes at the workplace. Some just want to tell out loud how they feel and be heard.

At these meetings, we met women playing change-making roles; mother teaching her children the value of making eye contact irrespective of gender, first woman employee of a company, women who want to shut down slut-shaming at work while asserting herself as a sexual being, women refusing to slice the office birthday cakes and write down the MoM… they want to shrug off what’s expected of them and they seem to want more. Something isn’t working and that something needs to be fixed. Although there’s anger, their voices are firm, logical and resilient, a brave new sound of a collective, an incisive hum, a strong chorus.

So we started our Sisterhood of the Travelling Stories…! A March 8 th packed with workshops in different cities/ towns, rooms full of women, all speaking at the same time across demographics and realities, but unsurprisingly the same thoughts, different words. The day was a blur of voices, silence, questions, laughter, self-deprecating humour, fears, melt- downs, hugs, spats and some serious monkey business for us and our army of facilitators across. What we left with were stories of collective pain, pride, new-found friendships and bright, glittering hope.

Thought snack: Out of all the clients we pitched to, most of the ones we bagged were the ones where the decision maker was a woman. Let’s interpret that individually.

This was a cathartic process for us at Road to Utopia. While we continue to dabble in the first two questions, our work seems to be cut out for now. Whether it is a multinational giant at the pinnacle of D&I initiatives trying to promote LGBT support groups or a 500 employee company trying to demand a budget for a celebration, the non-alpha population (refer to alpha-tribe above) needs equity, and the gap to bridge is long and deep.

The third question, our road ahead, has turned into our three-point agenda for the next three quarters of the year:

1. Reducing gender and identity-based divides and micro-aggressions at workplaces
2. Interactive awareness of sexual harassment for all employees
3. Learning and development for All (down till the lowest rungs of the corporate ladder)

I was personally handling a particular client for Women’s Day, a young food brand. This was the workshop I was looking forward to the most. The audience were women on the shop-floor, on-roll employees. We were gearing up and doing dip-stick checks of our content repeatedly to ensure that it’s demographic and language proof. But the work order didn’t come through. They couldn’t get permission for “manual labour” to be off-production for three hours to attend a workshop. Company paid them a bonus of INR 1000 each and arranged lunch to celebrate Women’s Day. Gone was an opportunity for the women to sit in a group, talk about autonomy, right to work, growth, struggles and hacks, to realize that they directly impact our economy. That evening I binged on cookies… soon I’ll talk to them again, I have some questions.

Road ahead looks hopeful…so we move on with full gusto and our manifesto! Onboarding processes are in progress with companies and allies who are signing up for a year of impactful change at their workplaces. We want to figure this out one day at a time, with our huge army of chosen family, team members and friends.

Are you looking to bring cultural changes in your organization? Do you have similar questions? Drop us a line or call us. We have the lofty goal of facilitating equity and it can only be achieved with group effort. Let’s make changes together.

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