Be Q-rious! Diversity Job Portal Equiv.in Unveils Initiative to Promote Inclusiveness of the LGBTQIA Community

India’s leading diversity job portal Equiv.in launched “Q-rious”, the first-of-its-kind networking initiative that will bring together corporates and the LQBTQIA community to collaboratively evolve policies that can promote inclusiveness of the community at the workplace.  The initiative was unveiled on Saturday in the city at the eighth edition of the Women Changemakers Career Fair and Confluence, a job fair for women organized by Stockroom.io, the parent company of Equiv.in. Stockroom.io is an HR tech start-up that aims to become the primary and biggest platform for companies to hire curated, skill-based talent at scale.

With an ambition to have a pan-India impact, starting early 2020, Equiv.in will host ‘Q-rious’ sessions at six cities across India – Bengaluru, Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Pune and Chennai. In the no-fee entry programme, Equiv.in will facilitate members of the LGBTQIA community and representatives of some of the biggest corporate brands to hold informal discussions that will enable both parties to understand each other’s hiring and employment needs and challenges in an open and honest manner. A vast range of issues, from workplace discrimination to talent development and reskilling is expected to be addressed in these free-wheeling discussions, with the ultimate aim of co-creating meaningful and actionable hiring policies.

Commenting on the launch of Q-rious, Naren Krishna, Founder and CEO, Stockroom.io and Equiv.in, said, “Diversity is a nascent market in India, where HR departments are still focused on improving the gender ratio within their companies. However, this leaves out a significant section of the available talent pool, comprising of highly skilled individuals in other hiring cohorts, like the LGBTQIA community. The barriers of entry for this community are often cultural ones, but repeated exclusion due to discrimination can lead to employable LGBTQIA members being unaware about the changing skill demands of the increasingly specialized and competitive job market. With Q-Rious, we seek to build a forum for dialogue between corporates and the LGBTQIA community to break down barriers and evolve hiring strategies that will benefit both parties.”

Q-rious is modelled after the start-up’s highly successful Women Changemakers Career Fair and Confluence, where women-centric focused discussions and networking opportunities have drawn thousands of female job aspirants across varied levels of experience, many of whom eventually landed in their dream careers. This year, the eight edition of the event saw participation from over 1200 women who leveraged networking and knowledge sharing opportunities presented by prominent corporate brands including Genpact, McKinsey, Maersk,Dell, Thoughtworks, American Express, Shell, Coca Cola, Shell, Standard Chartered, Mphasis, Paysafe, Akamai and Apus.

“It is really great to see such large number of women participating in Career Fairs such as Women Changemakers. These platforms are enabling women who are ready to start their career or are looking to restart their journey in the professional world. At Dell Technologies, we provide flexibility for all genders and encourage our team members to keep themselves abreast of the latest technologies and be upskilled.

We are also focused and committed to provide the ecosystem with ample opportunities. Our recent VMinclusion program ‘Taara’, is one such initiative for women who want to upskill themselves and return to work.  It encourages women to join back the workforce by providing them with free technical education to become VMware certified professionals. The training and certification is free of cost. With rapid pace of technology evolution and transformation, every woman needs to realise that it is essential to evolve, and we are happy to act as a catalyst to that journey." said Sujatha Idiculla, Senior Director – Dell Digital, Dell Technologies

Other highlights of the event included a moving talk by Paralympic medal winner Hitesh R who discussed his battle with cerebral palsy, a storytelling session on gender equality by Ankita Mehra & Shakti Iyer Singh. Participants were also treated to a speaking session by Bollywood actor and motivational speaker Ashish Vidyarthi.