Developing Gender parity and an Inclusive culture

Being part of a family operating a 65-year-old jewellery brand, Mahek Jain, Creative Director, Jain Jewellers, used to closely observe her father and grandfather working in the showroom. Maher completed her graduation in English literature and returned home during the first wave of Covid. Her father’s encouragement to join the family business promoted her to pursue a jewellery designing course from IIGJ. She started off by attending customers and working in the accounts section.

Revamped inventory

After joining the business, I found that the jewellery collections and designs we used to have were very regular in nature. Undoubtedly, they were good and had a decent regular demand, but I was missing outstanding artistry in our inventory. So, I decided to bring a change in the inventory across categories. In yellow gold, I brought in all kinds of designs and technology including laser-cutting jewellery in different weight ranges. We diversified our antique gold ranges. We have started introducing colourgemstones to make the pieces more wearable on different occasions.

Inclusive Culture 

The majority of our staff members were males and comprised almost 80% of the overall strength. This was an aspect that didn’t bother my father during his time of business, but catering to the youth today, I realized that most of our customers are female, and therefore need a female staff to relate with clearly. With more female sales personnel, the customers would feel more comfortable and connected. Now, we have a 50-50 distribution of male and female staffers. We have also hired staff members with some forms of disability from different backgrounds and cultures, as we strongly believe in giving equal chances to everybody. It reflects the inclusive culture of the organization.

Delightful Alteration Service

We have recently built a team of about 9 in-house karigars specializing in Jaipur and Kolkatta jewellery. Although it’s not a manufacturing unit, but it is definitely a small but sufficient set up extensively used for alteration. They are entrusted with accelerating our orders for jewellery alteration. Previously, we used to take the help of local vendors for any customization-related work. Previously the customers who wanted to get their jewellery customized had to wait for at least a week for any alteration or jewellery resizing work. Many a times, we had to refuse the customer if we feel that the alteration will require more than a week or so. However, with the help of the in-house team, we can now finish the same work in half-an-hour or so. Thus, customers today wait to get their pieces altered, while our sales staff introduce them to our latest collections. We have also seen that the customer tends to buy more in such situations. So, in a way, our sales have increased by at least 30-35% due to this factor. The customers are happy as we are able to complete the work in a short span of time, thus also saving the customer’s time and effort.

Courtesy: Retail Jeweller India News