Safety First
An inclusive hiring strategy across the employee ecosystem helped Flipkart meet the varied needs of employees
Starting with the pandemicinduced nationwide lockdown, e- commerce major Flipkart’s mettle was put to test like never before. While continuing its operations and to keep ‘Flipsters’ (employees) safe, the company made health, safety and training of the supply chain staff a top priority — right from active participation of the senior leadership to address employee concerns directly to taking exhaustive safety measures for the supply chain. These included over 4,000 training sessions for supply chain employees in multiple languages, safe last-mile delivery processes, doctor consultations and Covid safety handbook for the staff.
Among other initiatives, the company launched ‘FlipMarch’, aimed at on-boarding ex-Army personnel across its value chain. The eDAB programme ( Ekartians with Different Abilities), which started a couple of years ago, now has nearly 1,019 differently- abled employees in the supply chain. “We have devised an inclusive hiring strategy that encompasses the entire employee ecosystem depending on the varied requirements of the company across roles and verticals,” says Chief People Officer Krishna Raghavan.
Flipkart also actively hires from Tier-II cities. According to Raghavan, the Voice Assistant, or making Flipkart available in vernacular languages, was being built by a diverse team of engineers, design experts and enthusiasts.