What steps has Karam taken to challenge traditional gender roles and encourage women to pursue careers in safety, manufacturing, and engineering?
At KARAM Safety, we actively challenge traditional gender roles. We make diversity a core driver of innovation and high performance. We believe true safety innovation requires diverse thought and perspective. Therefore, we deliberately work to dismantle stereotypes. We create clear pathways for women to excel and advance their careers in technical and industrial disciplines like safety, manufacturing, and engineering. Our goal is not just representation, but meaningful leadership for women in these critical functions.
A key strategy underpinning this effort is comprehensive internal mobility and job rotation. We actively encourage talent development and exposure across the organization, viewing it as crucial for career growth and cross-functional expertise. A notable example is facilitating the transfer of a female employee from an administrative role directly into our core Innovation & Product Development (IPD) team, successfully bridging the divide between administration and technology and setting a precedent for others. Furthermore, recognizing societal factors that often impact women’s careers, we are deeply dedicated to ensuring job security and stability. We proactively support and facilitate the relocation of female employees to our other sites following significant life events, such as marriage, ensuring that their career progression remains uninterrupted by personal changes. This policy underscores our long-term investment in our female talent and our commitment to making KARAM a lifelong career destination.
Our strategic hiring efforts are sharply focused on achieving technical excellence through diversity. We have strategically increased outreach and recruitment to attract high-potential female talent into key technical and scientific areas such as our Lab, Quality Assurance, and Innovation & Product Development (IPD, formerly R&D) departments. These roles are the engine of our brand, and increasing female employment here injects vital, diverse perspectives into our core innovation process. By making these critical technical roles accessible and desirable, we ensure that women are actively shaping the future of occupational safety, from product design to quality control.
Leadership representation is arguably the most crucial element for inspiring and sustaining cultural change. Our commitment to gender inclusion is powerfully reflected at the senior management level, where strategic People Management and operational functions are led by women, including myself, Kavita Nigam, CHRO, and Sunita Sapra, COO. We serve as role models, mentors, and architects of inclusive policies. While we candidly acknowledge facing initial challenges in recruiting and retaining women in the industrial sector, the deliberate establishment of a comprehensive sense of security, built on transparent policies, confidential reporting, and supportive career structures has been highly successful. This cultural shift has significantly increased the stability and longevity of our female workforce.
We continuously reinforce this inclusive culture year-round, celebrating our talented women through dedicated engagement and recognition events, including International Women’s Day and various other organizational celebrations.
