Flipkart aims to make e-commerce more inclusive with its first
‘Ekartians with Disabilities’ delivery hub
- Aimed to provide a nurturing and healthy workspace for people with disabilities
- Flipkart today has over 1,019 people with disabilities across its supply chain, holding different positions including sorters, pickers, packers and delivery executives
In continuation of its efforts towards creating a diverse and inclusive workplace and supply chain, Flipkart, India’s homegrown consumer internet ecosystem, is strengthening its diversity programs, which aims to proactively hire and include diverse talent across gender, ethnicity and people with disabilities in its workforce. As a part of this initiative, helping eDABs (eKartians with Disabilities) or people with disabilities find employment is part of Flipkart’s commitment to increase diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
To champion this change, Flipkart has added a new delivery hub in New Delhi to its supply chain network, which will be managed end-to-end by 50 employees with disabilities, working in various capacities, including delivery executives, cashiers and team leaders. Through this effort, Flipkart aims to break stereotypes around the employability of people with disabilities and create more awareness around the capabilities of the community as they manage the hub and its operations end-to-end, making more than 1,100 deliveries every day. This is a decisive step towards building an enabling working ecosystem for people with disabilities and assimilating them into business operations.
Structured Program for inclusion and assimilation:
Flipkart understands the role of policies and processes that can help in not just hiring people with disabilities but also the importance of nurturing and creating an equitable environment for them for their growth. In this endeavour, there was extensive study of the processes, roles, responsibilities and expectations for employing people with disabilities to ensure seamless operations.
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This is supported by sensitization
sessions, special classroom training and on-job training with the help
of sign language interpreters and also to train new entrants and address
their concerns
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For communicating with customers, special
badges and flashcards were designed for Wishmasters so that customers
become aware of their disabilities. For their safety, emergency (“SOS”)
features are enabled on
their smartphones and an emergency number is printed behind the
flashcards.
Culture of Community:
At Flipkart, we understand that building an inclusive work environment is a collective responsibility and a strong inclusion program that includes all employees can go a long way in its success. This includes
- Assimilation and empathy training for ALL Flipkart employees
- Necessary infrastructure design for making supply chain facilities accessible
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Availability of interpreters for communication
Commenting on this development,
Hemant Badri, Senior Vice-President and Head of Supply Chain at Flipkart, said,
“Flipkart is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workforce
and is at the forefront of leading the initiatives around inclusion and
diversity in the e-commerce supply chain. As part of our continued
efforts towards creating an inclusive workplace
and assimilating people with disabilities into business operations, we
are introducing our first delivery hub run end-to-end by people with
disabilities in the capital of the country. We are hopeful the industry
continues to take such efforts in building a
more inclusive future.”
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