US-based fast-food chain KFC plans to double the count of women employees at its restaurants in India to around 5,000 in the next three to four years as it steps up diversity and inclusion initiatives in the country, according to a top company official. KFC India, which currently operates two all-women restaurants, is also looking at increasing the overall ratio of women employees to 40 per cent by 2024 from the current 30 per cent under its ‘KFC Kshamata’ programme – a focused effort towards driving the doubling of empowerment by 2024.

“On gender diversity, it has grown very organically. It is not like we were going out and trying to make a very loud exercise. Between 2013-14 and pre-Covid, in those five or six years diversity in our restaurants, from a gender perspective, has grown from 7-8 per cent to around 30 per cent that included both team members and leaders of restaurants,” KFC India Managing Director Samir Menon told PTI.

Taking forward KFC’s global diversity and inclusion agenda, KFC India said it aims to bridge the gender and ability imbalance gap and increase the women workforce at their restaurants by two times by 2024. “We have about 2,500 hundred women in our restaurants across states. Our intent is to at least, if nothing else, double the number of women we have in our restaurants over the next three or or four years and bring it up to 5,000 or so,” Menon said.