Diesel & Motor Engineering PLC (DIMO) launched the DIMO Women’s Network; a collaborative employee resource group for female employees of the organisation. The network was launched recently under the patronage of Chairman and Managing Director, DIMO, Ranjith Pandithage.
The DIMO Women’s Network is an extension of DIMO’s commitment to increase gender diversity. The primary objective of the network will be to provide mentorship and professional guidance to female employees to achieve their career aspirations.
The network will also provide assistance to handle workplace issues such as harassment or discrimination and collaborate on resolving business issues with gender smart solutions.
Chief Human Resource Officer, DIMO Dilrukshi Kurukulasuriya said, “Being in industries that are traditionally male dominated, DIMO’s male to female ratio has always been in the range of 9% -10%. However, we realise that our customer base includes a cross section of Sri Lankan society and there is a large female talent pool in the market that we have not tapped in to yet. Therefore, few years ago we actively began to increase gender diversity within the organisation and promote an inclusive work culture for all.”
Since it is challenging to attract and retain women for non-conventional jobs such as automobile technicians and other technical jobs, DIMO launched a program to recruit two batches of female students who had completed the GCE Ordinary Level to be taught automobile technology for 18 months. It provided the recruits with internationally acclaimed employment opportunities.
DIMO also recently amended its parental leave policy, increasing the quota of maternity leave for mothers and introduces paternity leave for fathers to promote healthy work-life balance and encourage mutual responsibility of bringing up a child.
Another initiative to support the female employees was to appoint three senior female managers to the Career Ambassadors pool to mentor staff members on achieving careers aspirations. Through such employee development efforts DIMO has succeeded in increasing the number of women in its leadership talent pools from 13% in 2016 to 36% in 2018.
The Executive Committee will consist of sixteen male and female employees who have pledged their support to create a gender smart organisation.
DIMO is one of the 18 Sri Lankan organisations which are members of ‘SheWorks’ Sri Lanka Private Sector Partnership, which is part of the Women in Work Program of the IFC. Representing the ‘SheWorks’ and IFC, Women in Work Program Manager Carmen Niethammer and Women in Work Employment Lead, Aarthy Arunasalam also attended the event.
DIMO and SheWorks are working together to implement a variety of employer-supported strategies, approaches and policies to boost women’s participation within the organisation.