Priya Mandlekar – Women setting new benchmarks for Growth | Women in Kale

A 2021 report by McKinsey states that women employees in Corporate world feel burned out due to a significant amount of work pressure (during the WFH routine). However, the reason is not only about the WFH, but also about managing their personal life along with work. Yes, the best of corporate companies is witnessing distress among their women employees.In turn, the report also says that this distress is leading to more attrition. In a nutshell, lack of work life balance is haunting women employees right from the top to the bottom of the pyramid.

Meet Priya Mandlekar, Manager – PING (KPO)

Women in Kale are more immune to all these challenges, and they overcome them with stride of confidence. Priya Mandlekar is one such key woman employee who despite being the Manager of the busiest team at Kale Logistics Solutions manages to bring in the perfect blend of work-life-balance. And yet achieve higher efficiency and set new work ethics benchmark for all other teams in the organization.

Shifting from Airline customer service to a tech company

As she narrates her journey – “I was earlier working at an airline company as part of the customer service team. So, this gave the required exposure to the industry and contextual knowledge. With family commitments I was looking opportunities closer home so that I would tend to my little daughter. At the same time, I wanted to take up a challenging role where I could redefine the conventional way of functioning. So, God had a plan for me with Kale. I dropped my resume at the Kale office which was located close to my home. Luckily, I got a call from the HR citing they had a suitable role for my profile, and that’s how my journey in Kale began 11 years ago. I have always admired Kale Consultants (Kale Logistics was a part of this organization till 2010) for their work culture and ethics and I knew what to expect from Kale Logistics. I come from a non-IT background and all I knew was an Air Waybill. I had a mammoth task of learning the domain and how the processes work in the industry. But this was made easy with immense support, training and guidance from peers, managers and the management.”

Managing work-life balance

“I was too lucky to have the right support from both my family and Kale to lead a perfect balance life. The organization made it flexible for me to work during crucial years of my daughter’s education. I also had my family’s backing to pursue more work and not be bothered with domestic chores. I feel I am blessed to have the best of both.”

Support from seniors and the management

Mentioning about the management and her seniors, Priya says, “Since the time I joined, the management has always been supportive. I got to closely work with the senior management who always told me that failure is not opposite of success but a part of success. If one does not make mistakes they never tend to learn. But only if they ensure the same mistake is not repeated. I was valued equally though being from non-IT field my perspectives, ideas and feedback was well considered and respected. This built mutual trust and respect for me with the organization.”

Working in the COVID-19 induced lockdown period

Expressing her WFH routine, Priya exclaims, “Working from home is not new to us. We have been working from home on and off before this time. But the challenge we faced was in terms of managing the exponential flow of customer queries. Kale had launched a free trial of PING service to enable business continuity. Stakeholders across the globe were leveraging it. 24×7, someone or the other from our team had to be live to check customer queries coming in. Now that process is also well streamlined. In short, we found an opportunity during testing times.”

The perfect example

Priya Mandlekar is the perfect example of how women can thrive well despite facing unprecedented challenges. Similarly, we have more women employees who are setting new benchmarks for growth every day.