Tata Steel, RJ Corp, Publicis Sapient and other big companies in India Inc. are ramping up hiring of transgender workers. Although the numbers are small, there’s a clear momentum towards increasing their participation in regular office work.

Several companies have begun hiring and revising their policies as they look to be more inclusive. Some are also skilling trans employees, offering higher stipend for hormone therapy and even identifying more roles for transgenders.

Tata Steel will soon be hiring at least 50 transgender persons. “Tata Steel currently has 106 transgenders who are working across all locations,” a company spokesperson said in an emailed response.

The steel maker received more than 300 applications in a special drive last month to recruit transgenders. “The recruitment is still in process,” the spokesperson said.

Publicis Sapient, a digital transformation solutions provider, has hired trans workers in India through programmes like the Rainbow Internship.

“The trans profiles we are looking for are not restricted to one area, but extend across different fields including operations, HR, marketing, engineering, and product management,” said Vieshaka L Dutta, senior director, diversity, equity, inclusion, for India and APAC at Publicis Sapient.

ESL Steel, part of the Vedanta Group, is planning to hire transgender employees in its administration/security functions to begin with.

“We are looking forward to hiring two transgender employees at ESL in the upcoming financial year of 2024-25,” said Khirod Kumar Barik, deputy CHRO at ESL Steel. The company has no transgender employees at present.

Most companies are now offering health insurance benefits to transgender employees which include gender reaffirmation surgery along with hormone replacement therapy.

“Our stipend for skill enhancement training programmes is definitely higher for trans people than the other stipends that we offer to other industrial trainees…by almost 300%,” said Akshay Tyagi, head-diversity, equity, inclusion, The Lalit Suri Hospitality Group. “Because a lot of trans people are on hormone therapy.”

Companies are also strengthening their policies around transgenders.

In 2022, InHarmony, a diversity, equity and inclusion consultancy firm, was working with only one manufacturing company on transgender inclusion. Today, it is working with four large organisations, said its founder partner, Anupama Easwaran.

According to Easwaran, most companies were earlier conducting sensitisation programmes sporadically, mostly during the pride month. “Today, the same companies have monthly sensitisation programmes,” she said.

Companies are also providing insurance coverage for live-in and same-sex live-in partners, employee assistance programmes, and internal mental health helplines to all, including LGBTQ+ employees. Other initiatives include gender-neutral bathrooms in offices and gender-neutral policies.

“In 2023, we embarked on a journey to actively create employment opportunities for transgender community and foster an inclusive workplace environment,” said Varun Jaipuria, executive vice chairman of Varun Beverages Ltd, Pepsico’s largest franchise outside the US.

“As we look ahead to 2024, we are eager to build upon our progress and open more doors for employment within our manufacturing and sales functions for transgender individuals,” he said.

InHarmony’s Easwaran said, “The government’s equal opportunities policy is motivating companies that had not done any work on trans inclusion to start having conversations.”

In February, the Centre formulated India’s first equal opportunities policy for the transgender community. It prohibits disclosure of the gender identity of a transgender without consent.