Bridging the Respect Gap: Urban Company's New Campaign

Over the past year, Urban Company has been dedicated to bridging the respect gap between India’s white-collar and blue-collar workers. Following its campaigns 'Chhota Kaam' and 'Chhoti Soch,' the third film in this series tackles subtle yet insidious prejudices through a heartfelt conversation between a father and daughter.

Each year, LinkedIn buzzes with discussions on leadership in workplaces, focusing on good, bad, and toxic managers, as well as issues like work-life balance and mental health. However, the same employees who engage in these discussions often fail to be good employers at home.

Kartik Ahuja, Senior Brand Manager at Urban Company, explains, “Over the last decade, Urban Company has reshaped access to blue-collar services in India. We serve both customers and partners, and fostering a conversation about the dignity of labor is crucial. This not only ensures consistent earnings growth for our partners but also provides safety nets like insurance and medical cover. Over 57,000 Urban Company professionals have benefited from our skill training programs and accreditations, enabling upward social mobility. With this initiative, we aim to help society see our partners as professionals, just as we do.”

Through extensive interviews with UC professionals, the creative team at Talented identified various biases that have widened the respect gap between blue-collar and white-collar workers. These insights revealed that the limited 'glass-cabin' view of workplaces often excludes the environments where millions of UC professionals work daily – our homes. As a result, the mutual respect that forms the foundation of dignity often doesn’t cross these glass boundaries.

Aakash Desai from Talented adds, “We eloquently discuss mental health at the workplace and our expectations from managers in Corporate India. We have a rich vocabulary for describing a 'toxic' workplace, yet we often forget that our homes are workplaces for UC professionals and other support staff, and we are their managers. In our third film, we aim to bridge the respect gap between white-collar and blue-collar workers and encourage UC customers to be allies to UC professionals.”

Kopal Naithani, Founder and Director at Superfly, notes, “The film depicts a slice-of-life conversation between a father and daughter that takes an unexpected turn, challenging the father to confront an unspoken prejudice. Our biases against blue-collar workers are rarely verbalized – they are complex, rooted in class-based 'othering,' and passed down through generations. The only way to break these intergenerational cycles of bias is to pause, recognize, and question them.”