Ruchira Bhardwaja, Joint President & CHRO, Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Company, has revealed that the insurer will be setting up all-woman branches as a part of its initiatives to balance women employment. She said: “Our target is to cross 30% mark with respect to representation of women by end March 2024. To reach the target, we plan to strengthen the existing processes including women specific recruitment drives, special referral programs, setting up all woman branches and bring in new interventions like focused internal promotions, tie-ups with woman specific institutes, etc.”
Kotak Life currently employs 2663 women across functions, which is around 27% of its workforce. During Jan-Dec 2022, it on boarded 1000+ women employees into the company.
Leadership: Equitable Share
Kotak Life believes that having equitable representation of women in leadership roles will have a huge impact on the employer branding and positioning of Kotak Life as a workplace of choice for women. 33% of its executive committee members are women, who head critical functions like investments, digital, tech and HR. Additionally, the company has 15+ domain experts leading critical functions, such as products, underwriting & claims, customer experience, digital, strategic relationships, etc.
Ruchira says: “This will break the stereotypes, will set a benchmark and encourage women to aim higher, pursue their passions and roles that they aspire to be in irrespective of the industry. We take pride that with active measures we are directionally going towards fixing the gender divide.”
Engagement & Development
There is great degree of focus by Kotak Life on building an ecosystem that provides women equitable opportunities for career development, inclusion, work life balance thus enabling retention. The current men to women attrition ratio in KLI is 3:1. The company has various policies to facilitate work life balance like hybrid working policy, sabbatical leaves, care-giver leaves that have been extended to women and it tracks the usage of the same.
Additionally, the company also gives importance to holistic care through the lens of financial, social, physical and mental wellbeing by providing applications to track physical health, access to mental health counsellors, webinars on wellbeing topics, new born baby kit, etc. Ruchira indicates: “Through various efforts we are bringing in more awareness, education about gender and gender expressions, but there is a universal acknowledgment of how DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) will only help further propel businesses and the organization at large. We also have created developmental interventions such as women leadership development journeys, networking opportunities, mentorship, which offers the right input for career growth.”
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