How Can We Ensure the Safety of Female Employees Traveling to Manufacturing Sites?

I am working in a company that operates in industrial automation. Often, our employees travel to other states and countries, including manufacturing plants, to support our customers for various official activities like commissioning. Despite having capable female employees who can handle and complete that work, we haven't been able to send them to sites due to safety concerns.

Safety Measures for Female Employees Traveling to Sites

Could you please suggest the safety measures our company should implement when sending female employees to sites, especially manufacturing plants?

Thank you.

Dear Sneha,

Women in Commissioning Roles: Addressing Safety Concerns

For the commissioning of the equipment, why couldn't women be sent to the customers' location? You have not mentioned what the exact safety issues are. In most manufacturing plants, at least in India, women also work. What is the problem for your women employees to go to a place where local women work?

Many manufacturing units are in industrial belts, but that does not mean they are in isolated places. Isolated places often house steel or power plants, but these plants generally have a large workforce, and the employees' township is adjacent to the plant. I have observed that women are quite safe and secure at such locations too.

Having said that, I do not intend to imply that women's safety is unimportant. Your women employees can work from 0900 to 1700 hours and return to the hotel. Let your client provide transportation from the hotel to the manufacturing plant and back. Make it part of the commissioning deal.

Regarding hotels, most establishments maintain extra vigilance on rooms occupied by women. This is part of their internal security protocol, which is not typically disclosed to guests.

I am a bit surprised that your women employees have not volunteered to handle the commissioning activity. In my training profession, I travel extensively and have seen women travel alone, even abroad. Why should "security" be a concern that requires further clarification?

Compared with women, men are slightly more agile for travel. Is agility the real issue but disguised under the pretext of security?

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

There are a couple of points that your understanding misses out.

Industrial Automation Commissioning Challenges

Generally, Industrial Automation commissioning activities can't be straight-jacketed in a 9-5 time window. Quite often, the work begins when other non-instrumentation staff is leaving, and work can go late into evenings/nights and sometimes can extend to over 16-18 hours at a stretch.

@Sneha Ahire--

It wouldn't be realistic or practical for your company to make arrangements for women's security at onsite locations, especially overseas. The only way to handle this issue would be what Dinesh Divekar suggested—'Make it part of the deal...'.

Safety Measures for Female Engineers

For ongoing projects, suggest you take the concurrence of the client before you send any woman engineer for commissioning activity—meaning your company's responsibility ends the moment the employee lands at the client site, and the client's responsibility for her security begins from that point on. Maybe the women employees also ought to be given self-defense courses to enhance the emotional and mental frame of mind—would come in handy, especially if she is being sent to African countries (Middle East is ruled out anyway for women engineers doing plant assignments).

All the best.

Regards, TS