BENGALURU: Online food delivery company Swiggy is planning to add 2,000 women to its delivery fleet by March 2019 as part of its move to create an inclusive workforce. Presently, the company employs over 60 women as delivery partners across 10 cities including Kochi, Pune, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Nagpur and Mumbai. “Swiggy continues to strengthen its network while also recognising the need to create an inclusive workforce.
Over the last few months, Swiggy has been working towards onboarding women and training them for relevant opportunities in this growing sector,” said a company official. The company will identify ‘safe zones’ for women to operate in and encourage them to complete their deliveries by 6 pm. Swiggy would also strengthen its women leaders and managers in operations and logistics teams across the country. The Bengaluru-based company, which has over one lakh active delivery partners on its platform, claims to be the largest food delivery company with 45,000 restaurant partners spread across 45 cities.
Sachin Kotangale, VP (Operations), Swiggy, said, “As we expand our delivery fleet in a conscious and sustainable manner, we not only want to continue an industry best delivery experience for our consumers, but also enable sustainable earnings for our partners with each of them doing more orders with us.” Swiggy’s competitor, Ola owned Foodpanda, said it has recently added 60,000 delivery partners on its network as part of its proposed expansion plans. Another food delivery player, UberEats, is also on an expansion mode as it plans to strengthen its business in the country.
The addition of headcounts by the food delivery companies comes at a time when there is a huge demand for delivery partners. The delivery partners engaged with most of the delivery companies are provided with benefits like accident and medical insurance, monthly rewards and incentives, and also financial assistance and loans to buy two-wheelers to become a partner with the players.