We have always been about being a more inclusive workplace. So far, our inclusive workplace initiatives haven’t taken into consideration the fact that only about ~0.5% of our delivery partners are women. 

Today, we are taking our first step towards increasing the participation of women delivery partners in our fleet. To begin with, we have set ourselves a goal of reaching 10% participation by the end of 2021 starting with Bangalore, Mumbai, and Pune.

Adding more women to our delivery fleet is not as simple as just targeting more women for this job. That’s because our policies need to change in order to attract and retain more women delivery partners. To achieve our goal of 10% women participation in the three pilot cities, we are working on four key initiatives – 

• Access to safety-related education and tools 
  • We are adding self-defense training to our onboarding process which will be mandatory for all women delivery partners to attend 
  • In addition to our first-aid kits, all women delivery partners will be equipped with a handy hygiene and safety kit
    

• Contactless deliveries by default
  • To prioritize our women delivery partners’ safety, we will be making late evening deliveries contactless by default

• Extended support from our restaurant partners
  • Many restaurant partners have come forward to ensure access to basic facilities such as separate washrooms for our women partners
  • We will highlight these restaurants with a #GirlPower tag (tag subject to change) on our app to showcase their support towards an equitable society
  • Furthermore, our women partners will be able to rate restaurants on “ease and safety”. We will utilize these ratings to improve working conditions for all our delivery partners. 

• SOS button and dedicated support
  • We are setting up a 24×7 helpline – a dedicated support team for our women partners – which will focus on expediting emergency requests to prioritize safety
  • Once triggered, the SOS button, on our delivery partner app, will automatically share live location with our on-ground teams, central rider support, and other delivery partners in the vicinity

Hopefully, in the near future, people won’t generalise this community as delivery boys, and see them for what they truly are – delivery partners. 

We continue to take feedback from our delivery partners and work towards making necessary changes – big or small, whatever may be the need of the hour to make Zomato a more inclusive workplace. If you have any suggestions or actionable insights to help us reach our target sooner than later, do reach out to me at d@zomato.com