Vodafone India Celebrates ‘Pledge for Parity’ during International Women’s Week 7-11 March

· Special VAS offers for Women customers, across India

·Vodafone Foundation to launch of 3rd edition of ‘Women of Pure Wonder’ on International Women`s Day

· Noted activist, actor & producer Gul Panag to engage with women employees on Safety & Wellbeing

· ‘HeForShe’, ‘Women in Red’ awards and more planned during the week

Vodafone India will celebrate the International Women’s Day with a week-long celebration from March 7-11, 2016 to acknowledge and appreciate the vital role of women and their contribution in the organisation and society at large. The entire week will be dedicated to celebrating Diversity with several events focused on the theme of ‘Pledge for Parity’.

Vodafone India has over the years consciously worked to build an inclusive work environment that encourages diversity. It has also focused on increasing the representation of women in it’s around 13,000 strong countrywide workforce.

Speaking about Vodafone India’s approach towards building an engaging and inclusive work culture, Suvamoy Roy, Director-Human Resources, Vodafone India said, “We are an equal opportunity employer. Our diversity journey is built on the foundation of creating an ecosystem that is attractive to women professionals and enables them to succeed at the workplace. Today, 21% of our work force are women and it is our ambition to take it 30% in the short-term. We are delighted to host a series of engaging initiatives to celebrate our women colleagues and their contribution to the workplace during this week.”

CUSTOMER OFFERS
Kick starting the International Women’s Week festivities is a unique VAS initiative that celebrates womanhood with VAS offer from a variety of offerings including fashion alerts from stylist Malini Ramani, cuisine and cooking related alerts from Master Chef Sanjeev Kapoor, daily pack of jokes, diet tips, learn English alerts etc. absolutely free of cost for a one month period.

WOMEN OF PURE WONDER
Vodafone is committed to helping women compete on an equal footing across India. On the occasion of International Women’s Day, 8 March, the Vodafone Foundation will release the 3rd edition of its Women of Pure Wonder book that further reinforces this vision. The coffee table book showcases the achievements of 50 phenomenal women from rural and urban India for their vision to take the path less travelled, for their valour to redefine personal success and for their victory over personal odds and numerous social evils that plague our country to this day. Women of Pure Wonder features leading personalities across spheres of film, social activism, dance and business, such as Sooni Taraporevala, Justice Leila Seth, Shovana Narayan, Kirthiga Reddy and many more.

INTERNAL ENGAGEMENTS
For women staff internally, a series of interesting and engaging events are lined up during the course of the International Women`s Week. These include
· A global address to all employees by Vittorio Colao, CEO, Vodafone Group Plc.
· Celebrations across all 39 Angel Stores (all women stores) in India where all the staff will be wearing a SASH saying Vodafone Diva
· Power House Sessions with inspirational speaker series for women employees
· Power Yoga session with noted activist, actor and producer Gul Panag on Women Safety and Wellbeing and interaction with Kalpana Vishwanath, CEO SafetiPin
· Power Hour with Leadership – Panel session with Industry leads , UN Women & Dr Saundarya Rajesh who is amongst Top 100 influential women awarded by President and Ministry of Child Labour & Welfare

· #HeforShe sign up events – Walkathon, Customer events , Community events, Campus events

· ‘Best Version of You’ – an educative session on personal grooming, self-defence, business etiquettes and executive presence
· A walk-in recruitment drive to hire women employees
· Special movie outing in select locations for women employees

AWARDS & REWARDS

WOMEN-IN-RED Awards- The award has been initiated to celebrate the achievements of inspiring women at who have led by example and promoted gender diversity by supporting other women in the organisation. These women are nominated by any colleague in the organisation. In total 100 women are being globally recognised across the Group.

HE-FOR-SHE Awards- Vodafone Group CEO Vittorio Colao is a corporate champion for the global HeforShe campaign that supports gender equality and promotes women empowerment. The HeForShe Awards will recognize male mentors who are advocates of gender diversity within the organisation and have demonstrated this within their own teams.

Vodafone India’s Diversity Journey: Quick Overview
· Diversity and inclusion continue to remain a top priority for Vodafone.
· Presently, Vodafone’s direct staff strength of over 13000 consists of 21% women. Intends to grow this to 30% in short-term
· The number of women being hired is progressively increasing over the years.
· Overall diversity(%) – Moved from 14% in FY13-14 to 21% in FY15-16 , a significant jump of 7% + in just 2 years
· Discover Graduates hires : over 50% women hires vs. 38% in 2013
· Vodafone India currently operators 39 Angel Stores (women only stores) across India
· Launched Vodafone Inclusivity Network – where all employees can join the forum that focuses on influencing culture inclusivity at workplace.
· 95% of all people managers have undergone ‘Inclusive Leadership’ workshops focusing on unconscious bias
· Structured intervention to work with the existing women employees to plan and advance their career.
· Conducts activities like health workshop and health checkups for all women employees