Vacancy: Only transgenders apply

IBM reinvented its logo in rainbow colours in January and Kochi Metro recruited 23 transgenders in May. These are signs of India’s workplaces becoming increasingly inclusive. Now, a Chennai-based recruitment agency, PeriFerry, has been working towards providing placement to the third gender.

Conceptualised by 23-year-old Neelam Jain, the company has a database of 70 trans applicants from all over India. “We see ourselves as facilitators who ‘ferry’ trans people from the edge of acceptance to the place they want to be,” says Jain. Within a month, it has placed two candidates in housekeeping at the Accor Group of Hotels, one as an outlet manager and production manager at Kola Pasi restaurant, a sales person at Farm Taaza, and found jobs for two others in sales at Sharp Shooters in Chennai.

During her two-year stint as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, Jain came up with the idea of a transgender inclusive workspace for an internal competition to develop a project deserving of the company’s social impact fund. She was driven by the model and quit her job last year to collaborate with NGOs Sahodaran and Orinam, which rehabilitate trans people, and then formed PeriFerry.

The team is small: Steevez Rodriguez works with NGOs to extract skilled candidates and handles social media. Nanditha Ravindar preps soft skills and confidence levels in candidates; Trishala S contacts companies and smoothens the hiring process; and community manager Bharaa Bobby, who is also a transgender, gets the candidates to open up about their lives: Have they come out to their family as they will to colleagues? Is their guru and thela (trans members they live with) okay with them working? Were they involved in sex work? 

Candidates are screened and sifted into those who are equipped to work in an office and those who require training. Simultaneously, PeriFerry organises a sensitisation programme at the workplace to teach colleagues to be supportive and learn simple things such as using appropriate pronouns — he, she and not it.

PeriFerry steers clear of companies that hire trans persons just to make their brand look good. “Small things, such as gender-neutralising one of the washrooms — by just changing the signboard —might not happen if the intent is not right.”

Take the case of Vanitha, 26, previously a counselor and a marketing professional. Periferry got her a job as a sales executive at Farm Tazaa, a wholesale retailer for fruits and vegetables, to approach local vendors about her company's fresh produce. Initially she was rebuffed by few vendors. “One of them sent her away with a Re 1 coin. She came crying to me. I asked those shopkeepers to cooperate. Today, her employers say she's doing a good job,” recounts Bharaa.

A major roadblock, for PeriFerry as a private entity, is funding. The current revenue worked on the universal commission fee for every successful recruit. However, PeriFerry has done away with the consultancy cut. Instead, at a lesser cost, they host sensitisation workshops and arrange field visits by experts and work with HR to incorporate non-discrimination policies. 

“We will assume an advisory role so that the company holistically grows to become inclusive. We will also keep checking with the trans employees to see if they feel accepted and happy,” says Jain.