Kuldip Maity

International Women’s Day is celebrated on the 8th day of March every year. It is a day when women are recognised for their achievements irrespective of their national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic or political identity, to build support for women's rights and participation in all arenas of life.

For an organisation such as VFS, whose core agenda is to provide financial support to women entrepreneurs to empower them and make them financially independent, we recognise the ability of women every day. Empowering a woman empowers the entire family, maybe generations.

However, the question remains if we have been able to achieve gender equality across all fields of work. Or do we still have areas where women are not given the chance to make inroads, especially in areas of entrepreneurship? Let us accept that those areas exist.

Now that women entrepreneurship is becoming popular, even at the lower economic strata, I keep a keen eye to check if women are being treated equally in all types of businesses. Whenever the field staff finds an entrepreneur who is trying to start a business that is still perceived as male dominated, they bring it to my notice.

Such is the case of Riya Kar from Hatal, Howrah.

It might be safe to say that mechanical engineering is still a male dominated stream, especially processes related to the workshop. It definitely was, five years ago. So, when Riya applied for a loan to buy a capstan machine, we got another example of gender equality. It is not the first time that we have got a customer in the machine shop business, but they have been very few. Even the single addition of Riya, to the list would mean progress.

Five years down the line, Riya lives in her own house with her husband and a four-year-old son, along with her father-in-law. The family also owns a motorcycle, another sign of prosperity at the bottom of the financial pyramid. She is planning to expand her business from the local factories to Kolkata, and she would have done it by now, but for the COVID-19 pandemic.

When we talk of sustainability, we refer to the three Ps—People, Planet and Profits. And when the United Nations sets this year’s theme as ‘Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow’, Riya Kar seems to be a prime example.

Our world goes through changes every day. Technology, culture or even the way we think—there is hardly anything that has remained constant for long. But what amazes me is how age-old proverbs are applicable even today.

At Village Financial Services, leading the mantra of supporting women entrepreneurs, I am reminded of the proverb, ‘where there is a will, there is a way’, every second day. If we are passionate about what we want, there is hardly any roadblock that can restrict us. Passion, dedication, innovative problem solving—whatever it may be called, the fact remains that our customers always find a solution to overcome the hurdles they face to transform their dreams into reality.

Such is the story of Jharkhand’s Sabita Devi, who dropped out of school after Class 9. Married off to a man who drove delivery vans, Sabita became the mother of two at a very early age. It did not take her long to realise that, if her children needed to get a better life, the family could do with some extra income. But she was in a fix. Busy with domestic chores, she could not join a full-time assignment and setting up a business would take a lot of effort.

The first obstacle was finding a workspace and getting the location and cost right. If taking the basic first step itself threw up a lot of questions, how many were waiting down the line?

That’s where the proverb pops up. As she had the will, she focused on finding the solution, rather than dwelling on the questions.

Sabita had a close look at the kirana shop that their family had been operating for years. The business and stock volumes did not justify the space taken up by it, and there was some to spare. She carved out some space for setting up a sewing machine. Sewing has always been her passion but as a hobby. Why not make some money by putting the sewing machine to work for customers?

As I always say, entrepreneurship is not only about running a business to earn from it. It becomes a way of life. The same happened with Sabita. The confidence she got from finding the first solution was enough for her to find the answers to the rest.

I am sure the road was bumpy. But not bumpy enough to stop Sabita, who takes pride in letting us know that her son works in a government bank and her daughter’s graduation is just around the corner.

When a woman lives at the bottom of the financial pyramid, she needs more than one source of income to climb up. Earlier I have written on the merits of spreading the risk of business. I had also cited the successes of our customers who diversified during the pandemic.

Here let me focus on entrepreneurship itself, more specifically the dilemma that a budding entrepreneur faces.

When we profile our customers, a substantial section of first-time borrowers either have been banking on the single income source of the male member of the family or are working for a daily wage. They have a source of income, but unfortunately, that income does not suffice their needs of livelihood. When these women come to us for microfinance, after becoming a part of a JLG, they may need to give up on their personal engagement to take a leap of faith in the world of entrepreneurship. For any new entrepreneur, holding faith in the decision is extremely important. Filled with the uncertainties of business outcomes, every dip challenges this faith.

Many would like to follow the typical “don’t worry, be happy” philosophy and leave things be. They would prefer living a life of low but assured income over the risks of starting a new business. It would have been a perfect outlook had we lived in a world that maintains the status quo. However, in real life, those who are content with a buffer-less income start facing the challenge the moment problems emerge — and it’s guaranteed that they will emerge, the pandemic being a prime example.

Does that mean that jumping into the uncertainty of running a business is the only way to mitigate our uncertain future? Definitely not. Having a buffer is.

And that brings up the story of Syed Rehena Begam of Kotulpur in West Bengal’s Bankura district. She is a full-time worker in the Integrated Child Development Scheme. In her family, along with her husband, she has two adult sons, who are employed in other professions. She is also a proud grandmother!

But even after having spent a major part of life in a similar financial situation, she did not miss out on the opportunity to add to the family income. The moment she heard that a shop space was available at a prime location having rice mills, cold storage installations and other factories, she decided to put up a store selling convenience items and stationery. With her job engagements she knew that she could not run the store herself, but her husband and son could. For capital, she was confident of the support from Village Financial Services.

If Syed Rehena Begam says that her family did not feel much financial distress over the last couple of years, it is because she challenged the status quo and always looked out for opportunities to create a buffer.

As offices try to get back to the pre-COVID mode of functioning, a word that keeps cropping up is “moonlighting”.

When a person works on a side project of his own or for an employer other than his regular one, he is “moonlighting”. Before the COVID19 pandemic made work from home normal, companies did not allow employees to moonlight, especially where there was a conflict of interest.

Today, employees moonlight to make money, learn some skills or try out a new work profile without giving up their regular job. Employers, fighting the business slump, have cut back on training budgets and this could be pushing employees to learn new skills on the side.

Unless there are processes in place, a big loophole in WFH is that the employer cannot monitor the employee in his home during work hours, especially when not enough work is given to keep the employee busy.

Ethics aside, if the terms of employment restrict moonlighting, I feel it should be avoided. As an organization, we need to understand that a worker’s performance in the primary job could suffer if moonlighting has left him tired. There are also concerns about misuse of company resources, data leakage and abuse of intellectual property. An employee striving to meet targets in his moonlighting job could skip his primary employer’s work.

As with every new phenomenon, moonlighting has its pros and cons, and we need to have well-thought-out processes to handle it.

Before the COVID19 pandemic, hardly any business outside the information technology sector had laid down processes for WFH. But now, almost all companies have introduced WFH wherever possible.

It is too early to accept or rule out moonlighting. But we must accept that it has its impact much beyond just being a simple secondary source of income.