8 March, Women’s International Day, marked as a global day for women to celebrate the empowerment and achievements. Also, the day observed as an action day that encourages corporate/people towards gender diversity.
With the dynamically changing times, women have left no stone unturned. Gone are the days when women could only do certain types of jobs. In today’s day and age, many women are exploring different career avenues. Women are no longer interested in doing a mundane 9-5 job that will please her family. Corporates have taken cognizance of the fact a woman’s skill set is equal to that of a man and are working towards equalizing the pay disparity. Many laws have also been put in place to ensure that workplaces are safe for women to work. To know about more from the corporate world, BW Businessworld, dig into the different sector and grasped leaders view on diversity and inclusion:
Jaya Vaidhyanathan, President, Bahwan CyberTek
The industry has become a much better place for woman employees across levels over the years. Key measures being the acknowledgment of the problem of the dearth of women especially across middle and senior management lending an imbalance in the workplace. Active measures include the creation of support networks for women at workplace, regulatory changes such as enhanced maternity leave, focus on hiring and retention of women, legal requirements for women at workplace and special recognition for Women in STEM fields. IT industry has pioneered technology led innovations such as Telecommuting, job sharing among others.
Samriti Malhotra, Global HRD, Denave
As far as gender diversity is concerned, the organizations, specifically the IT sector has undergone a tremendous transformation in the thought process. The IT industry is poised to adopt a result-oriented approach to the given agenda. The industry leaders are focused on engaging women through various networking platforms across geographies. The organizations are also investing in technology and infrastructure to meet accessibility standards, ensuring that all supporting infrastructure and life cycle related policies are in place to support diversity programs with a clear governance and accountability model.
Rohit Thakur, Managing Director and Lead Human Resources, Accenture in India
In India, women represent more than one-third of our workforce. Our commitment to inclusion and diversity starts at the top and in 2017, we became one of the first companies to set a target of having a gender-balanced workforce, with 50 percent women and 50 percent men by 2025. We are also committed to growing women in leadership positions and are on track to achieve our goal of 25 percent managing directors by 2020.
Shraddhanjali Rao, Head – Human Resource, SAP India
The technology industry has in the last few years made significant progress to ensure gender equality, however, there is still much to do. Authentic Inclusion will truly be the game changer. Since SAP’s vision is to help the world run better and improve people’s lives, our culture is one of fairness and equality along with constant innovation that fosters learning and growth. One of the steps needed to increase the number of women in technology is to develop a passion in women for technology in their formative years and create customized programs to address the various challenges they would face throughout their career lifecycle be it via policies, practices or through a conducive work environment. With our sustained effort in actively promoting gender equality, our gender balance in the workforce is at 33%.
Jyothirmayee JT, Founder and CEO (HiveMinds)- digital marketing firm
Mentorship is the largest challenge. Men tend to network better, mingle faster – whether it is at an event or an investor meeting, seek help and information more freely. Women need to continue to improve the support system. WeConnect, GHC, HerStory, Sheroes and many other organizations are helping on this front.
There are other challenges which women entrepreneurs can overcome on their own. It could be family support, child-care, inhibitions towards travel, networking & other. The most discussed challenge is the gender bias at critical junctures in entrepreneurship journey – co-founders, putting up a team, raising funds. It is essential for women to make it explicit as there are assumptions being made – we need to strongly communicate how we are equally invested & well prepared for the arduous journey as an entrepreneur.
Rita Bakshi, Senior Gynaecologist and IVF Expert, International Fertility Centre
As far as Gender Diversity is concerned in our country, we have seen the worst of days but relentless and consistent efforts of the women have definitely proved that they are not inferior or weak and definitely not meant to be discriminated. Over the years, the women have made their presence worthwhile in the Society. The threads of social norms, taboos and stigmas are slowly detaching and are experiencing a change, a change for the better. Women are standing up for their own selves, are independent and have their own voice. No shackles of the society can abstain or scar their growth and upliftment and it can be clearly seen how several women have stood up and embraced motherhood.
Nitin Motwani, Founder & CTO, BookMyForex.com
Since the inception, I have focused on having an excellent organizational culture and believe that a healthy gender diversity ratio creates the right culture in the company. Since we are a customer-oriented company, it’s a good to have view point of both men and women as they are different due to different life experiences. I am proud to share that we have been able to maintain a gender diversity ratio of 1:1, not just in entry level positions but also in middle level management and senior leadership. In fact, we have found our women staff to be efficient, focused and career oriented. We also have few come back women who took career break for starting a family and have joined us back. We aim to maintain a healthy gender diversity ratio because the multiplicity of perspectives spark creativity and innovation.
Mayank Shekhar, Chairman & Managing Director, ISS / iE3 Retail
It is great to see women achieving greater heights in research, sports and leadership roles in businesses and society. From ancient times, women have contributed to knowledge, been queens, warriors and leaders. It is wonderful that the setback of gender inequality and segregation of the medieval period is overcome now and we are making progress every year. It is our endeavor to encourage women, promote equality, pave the way for women to contribute as leaders once again. Society can benefit immensely from their contributions.
Kuntal Aggarwal, co-founder of ‘Resaiki’
On the subject of sound advice for budding female entrepreneurs she said – “If you’re seeking to walk the entrepreneurial path the best advice we can give you is to – Adopt a “can do” attitude and leap forward with confidence in whichever line of work is right for you.”
As women we lead our professional lives differently than men. When it comes to delegation men tend to trust men over women and we must take measures to break the myth. However, we must also ensure that in the process we don’t get bogged down by the weight of their judgment so that someone else’s opinion doesn’t come in the way of our performance.
We burden ourselves with responsibilities and the pressure of pleasing everyone around us. The key to achieve work-life-balance is to recognize your limits, do your best and not worry about the rest. We’d counsel fellow women in business to stand their ground with fervor and determination and don’t take no for an answer till you turn your dreams into reality.
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