With a strength of 27 women out of 36 team members at Multibhashi, women’s day is not just a celebration of she-power for us but a celebration of ‘strength’ in the true sense of the word.
When I founded Multibhashi, one of my biggest challenge was to gradually build a team which can help us cater to all languages of India because our vision is to empower Indians from all parts of the country to be able to acquire basic English communication skills.
And of course, being a startup, I was required to accomplish this feat with a shoe string budget. I asked myself what are the bare minimum qualifications of such team members. One, they should be fluent in English (not the PhD level because our focus is early acquisition of English) and two they must have strong roots in their mother tongue (any one Indian language)
I worked with a number of interns who were essentially undergraduate students in my initial days. They fufilled the above criteria and were working for some pocket money. So it worked well for both of us.
However, with time I realized that they have other commitments as students and are not regularly available. Also, I felt a lack of a few important personality traits like patience, maturity and perseverance which perhaps a person acquires with growing age and experience.
Luckily for me, one day, I was invited to speak at an event at Sheroes, a community of women who are returning back to work after a gap in their careers due to personal reasons. The idea was to inspire these women by sharing my personal story of being a mother of two trying to build her own startup.
It was a heartwarming session with an enthusiastic bunch of Sheroes members and once I wrapped up, a few women approached me saying they really loved the idea I was working on and asked if there were any work from home opportunities at Multibhashi. I wasn’t sure of how this would pan out but it struck me as an interesting idea and I on boarded two of them.
“I wasn’t sure of how this would pan out but it struck me as an interesting idea and I on boarded two of them.“
“I wasn’t sure of how this would pan out but it struck me as an interesting idea and I on boarded two of them.“
One of them, Ashwini, really shone through and continues to be our brightest team members till date. She was an MBA who had 2 years of work experience before she conceived her son and had to give up on her career. After a long gap of 10 years, she made a bold decision of stepping out and exploring opportunities. However, she still wanted to be around for her son and was only interested in a work from home opportunity.
Ashwini now devotes a significant amount of time to Multibhashi every day besides taking care of all household work and looking after her son. She is a Kannada champion who helps us compose training content, deliver trainings and also contributes to marketing communication.
With Ashwini, I had struck gold and there was no looking back after that. We have 25 such educated housewives working with us now who are contributing to the cause of Multibhashi from the comfort of their own homes. Their commitment, discipline and dedication to work cannot be justifiably detailed in this small article but I can safely say that whatever little Multibhashi has achieved, is because of them.
We collaborate online most of the time and don’t get enough face time but the team is more connected in spirit than many other teams working out of the same office space. I have never had to worry about indiscipline or insincerity and in fact on the contrary, sometimes I have to ask them to slow down and also take care of themselves.
For them, Multibhashi is their chance to express their potential. For most of them, their working hours are their only ‘me-time’ hours because the rest of their entire time belongs to their family. Whatever little they are able to earn through their work, gives them a sense of freedom and pride but their biggest remuneration remains the appreciation they receive from their trainees.
“this salary is after my 2 years of gap from my career. Will spend it on my baby really I am so happy.”
“this salary is after my 2 years of gap from my career. Will spend it on my baby really I am so happy.”
One of the new recruits, Shabana, after receiving her first salary, pinged me thus: “Thank you Mam and this salary is after my 2 years of gap from my career. Will spend it on my baby really I am so happy.” 5 of our early recruits are now training new team members and managing teams under them.
There have been cases where women were able to start a new life after a bad divorce because of a work from home opportunity at Multibhashi because they also had young children to look after and couldn’t step out for work. In one of the cases, a team member was able to support her family after her husband lost his job and was still able to be around for her old parents in law.
Many such success stories are inspiring more women to start working again and carve out a career for themselves. If there is one thought I would like to leave the readers with, this Women’s day, it will be this: How can you contribute to empower at least one woman around you by encouraging her to do what she really wants to do in life despite her challenges and constraints?
