Zomato to increase women in its delivery fleet to 10 pc by end of the year

Zomato, the Gurugram-based foodtech unicorn, announced in its blog post that it aims to increase the participation of women in its delivery fleet from its current meagre 0.5 percent to 10 percent by the end of 2021. The team will be starting with this effort in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune.

Deepinder Goyal, Co-founder and CEO, Zomato said in the post,

"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 percent 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 percent participation by the end of 2021."

ALSO READ

Zomato commits 100pc electric vehicles adoption for its delivery fleet by 2030

However, the team understands the task isn't as simple as just targeting more women for this job. Deepinder acknowledged there was a need to be a policy change. He said, "Our policies need to change in order to attract and retain more women delivery partners. To achieve our goal of 10 percent women participation in the three pilot cities."

To do this the team is working on:

a. Access to safety-related education and tools — The team is adding self-defence training to its onboarding processes, which will be made mandatory for all the women delivery partners. The women delivery partners will have first-aid kits, and hygiene and safety kits.

b. Contactless deliveries by default for late evening deliveries — In order to prioritise the safety of the women delivery partners, Zomato is making late evening deliveries contactless by default.

c. 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 utilise these ratings to improve working conditions for all our delivery partners," said Deepinder.

d. SOS button and dedicated support — The team is setting up a 24X7 helpline, and put in place a dedicated support team for the women partners. This will focus on expediting emergency requests to prioritise safety. The blog stated, once triggered, the SOS button on the 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," said Deepinder.