While the Union government is still chalking out plans to start the country’s first women’s bank, an all women’s services company is already up and running in Bangalore.

The country’s first company for women, Maniams, focuses on women who are presently not working. “There are homemakers who have good work experience and have qualifications that can fetch them a job in any big company. However, many of them are unable to join full-time work as they want to take care of their kid and family. Since, a regular office does not give them the flexibility to work for 4-5 hours in a day, we thought of unlocking the potential of these women,” says Karthik Anand, co-founder and director, Maniams.

Maniams takes outsourced work from companies and have their women employees manage them. For instance, if a company needs a marketing person for a few months, they can approach Maniams, who will then provide them with the required services.

Take the case of Madhu Sarangi who had to quit her job a few years back as she had to travel to the US with her husband.

After coming back to India, she could not resume her work as she preferred to stay at home to take care of her child. “I have a marketing background. My previous work involved a lot of travelling which I could no longer think of doing. Hence, I was sitting at home unemployed, as very few companies in India provide the flexibility I was looking for,” says Sarangi. She now does market research work for a company.

“On Monday, I get to know what I need to deliver by Friday. Hence, I chose my own timings. For instance, I work the maximum from 7:45 to 11:45 when my kid is in school,” she says.

Though women with work experience are preferred, homemakers who have never worked before but have good qualifications are also not ignored, says Ananth.

“I do not believe any lady sitting at home does not possess the qualities that matters in a job.
Most of them have arranged their kids’ birthday parties or weddings which means they are good at event management. There was one woman who visited construction sites and dealt with workers to build her house. She was reluctant to work as she did not have any job experience. I told her she would be excellent in vendor management,” remarks Ananth.

The hiring process
The 18-month old company could not take the traditional route to hire employees, since their target was homemakers. “Obviously homemakers will not update their resumes on the internet.
So we approached various apartment complexes and spread the word. Other sources were birthday parties, kids’ playground etc. ” Today, they have hired 22 women based out of Bangalore, Kolkata and Hyderabad.

Companies approach them for services like sales and digital marketing, market research, content writing, HR etc.

source: http://www.dnaindia.com / DNA / Home> Bangalore> Report / by Suparna Goswami Bhattacharya / Place:Bangalore, Agency:DNA / Wednesday – October 09th, 2013