The Business Bytes
TBB BUREAU
NEW DELHI, MAR 10, 2023
On International Women’s Day 2023, Vedanta Aluminium launched an Augmented Reality (AR)-led campaign (a selfie filter) called ‘Sorting Hard-Hat’ on Instagram. Focused on attracting women professionals to the manufacturing industry, the campaign seeks to enhance the gender diversity present within the sector.
At present, the disparity in male-female hiring is even more pronounced in the metals and heavy engineering sectors. In this year’s edition of the campaign, the exciting filter matches viewers’ personalities with desirable attributes for various departments at Vedanta Aluminium based on the ‘Thinking Hats’ concept, and then invites them to check out the careers page on the company’s website for their dream job.
The campaign was launched on International Women’s Day to urge women professionals and students to actively consider a career in the manufacturing industry. Leveraging AR for the manufacturing sector where digital technology has become a great equalizer ensuring increasing participation of all genders, the campaign truly embodies this year’s International Women’s Day theme of ‘DigitALL: Innovation & Technology for Gender Equality’.
The manufacturing, heavy engineering and metals industries will be the backbone of India and is powering India’s ambitions of becoming the manufacturing hub of the world. With the dawn of Industry 4.0, the sector is becoming increasingly attractive with exciting opportunities such as high-tech manufacturing, sustainable manufacturing, energy transition and creation of ‘green’ products & services for a low-carbon economy. This promises immense career options in an industry that has undergone a quantum leap over the years with extensive deployment of hi-end technologies, digital solutions, advanced automation, smart manufacturing, robotics, and more.
Speaking about the campaign, Vedanta Limited – Aluminium Business CEO Rahul Sharma said, “The forthcoming decades are going to be metal-intensive, preparing for which will need the metals and mining industry to harness the best of human capital, for creating innovative products, high-end applications, and sustainable solutions for a better tomorrow. With India strongly emerging as a global manufacturing and value-addition hub, the time is right for the manufacturing sector to close that talent gap with women professionals, who are grossly underrepresented in the industry, and capitalize on their skills, experience, and expertise for business growth.”
“This campaign aims to help women imagine a career in a hard hat with one of the world’s largest aluminium manufacturers, and as a result, apply for various job openings within the company,” he added.
At Vedanta Aluminium, women professionals are thriving in traditionally male-dominated fields such as core operations and technical roles across the business, ranging from metal production, logistics, civil work and railway infrastructure to finance, security, and commodities procurement.
Since inception, Vedanta Aluminium has strived to address the gender gap prevalent in the metals & mining industry by working on the fundamental pillars of equitable workplace practices.
Embracing gender diversity in all its forms, the company has expanded the ambit of its talent acquisition net to include members of the LGBTQIA plus community. Since last year, the company has hired 14 transgender women who are engaged in the material handling and security functions at its mega aluminium smelters at Jharsuguda in Odisha and BALCO in Chhattisgarh.
Vedanta Aluminium, a business of Vedanta Limited, is India’s largest producer of aluminium, manufacturing more than half of India’s aluminium i.e., 2.27 million tonnes in FY22. It is a leader in value-added aluminium products that find critical applications in core industries. Vedanta Aluminium ranks 2nd in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) 2022 world rankings for aluminium industry, a reflection of its sustainable development practices. With its world-class aluminium smelters, alumina refinery and power plants in India, the company fulfils its mission of spurring emerging applications of aluminium as the ‘Metal of the Future’ for a greener tomorrow.
