Over 95 per cent of Indian female blue collar employees are confident they receive equal pay and 93 per cent of male employees also say the same, reveals the findings of a new report by global job site Indeed.

Asked what their next course of action would be if they found out they did not receive equal pay, 67 per cent of employees said they would be most likely to speak to their manager and 21 per cent said they would leave the job.

Interestingly, 70 per cent of the female employees said they would speak to their boss as opposed to 65 per cent males and 23 per cent of male employees said they would leave the job as compared to 18 per cent female.

This shows how the blue-collar workforce is content at work and has positive motivation towards solving challenges at work, which, in turn, increases efficiency and productivity in this sector.

A slight difference is also seen in how millennials and Gen Z react. Employees surveyed aged 25-34 are most likely to leave their job if they found out they were not receiving equal pay, compared to those aged 18-24 (24 per cent vs 19 per cent).

The report titled ‘The Pulse of India’s Blue-Collar Workforce’ examines the state of men and women representation among the blue-collar workforce in India and how blue-collar organisations measure up in terms of diversity and work culture.

Sanjukta Ghosh, Social Impact Manager, Indeed said the blue collar segment has been faring well overall with hiring seeing a positive growth in the last two years.

The rise of the gig economy is also expected to add buoyancy to the segment, with Indeed’s data showing that there is a 9 million gig workforce in the making by 2025.

“Given this growth, organisations are revamping their policies and structure to incentivise more employees to join. Our data shows that men and women in blue collar are more or less on the same page when it comes to equal pay, importance of equal gender representation and the benefits of it. Blue collar employees are satisfied with most aspects of their work, which speaks volumes of the kind of mileage we can expect in this segment in the coming year or two,” Ghosh added.

Blue collar employees happy at work

A whopping 96 per cent of employees agree that their company provides additional benefits/support in the form of mental support, financial support, retirement benefits, flexible work etc.  

As many as 90 per cent also agree that their company has a good work/life balance, signifying that employees are happy at work and are satisfied with the company policies and systems.

Most blue-collar employees surveyed (46 per cent) believe that they have an excellent representation of women at their workplace and the impact of this is high as well. 87 per cent of blue-collar workers say that equal representation of women in their company makes them feel more confident, motivated, or inspired. 80 per cent also said diversity at work makes them more likely to stay working there and 73per cent said they are more likely to go above and beyond for the company.

Employers support by devising processes for fair representation

As many as 97 per cent of employers think that gender equality is important and are doing their best to improve diversity and fair representation in their organisations.

However, there are still challenges that prevail. Lack of support systems in place to help women (56 per cent), lack of education about gender equality (53 per cent) and societal views (49 per cent) are the major deterrents to achieving gender equality.

To combat these, employers are trying to implement processes and systems to achieve gender equality within their company.

The top four things employers surveyed currently doing are offering the same salary to male and female employees for the same job role (61 per cent), offering the same incentives to male and female employees (61 per cent), zero tolerance for sexual harassment and gender discrimination (53 per cent) and avoiding the use of gender stereotypes/non-inclusive language (45 per cent).