Cos make room for women

Blue-chip India is rolling out the red carpet for ladies. It’s affirmative action with a gender twist. Some of India’s top companies are now giving specific mandates to head-hunting firms to fill middle and senior management roles with women candidates. Companies like Bharti Enterprises, American Express, Wal Mart, Shell, IBM and Microsoft are using a variety of policies to promote gender diversity.

Bharti Enterprises and American Express have mandated their recruitment agencies to have a certain percentage of women candidates at the interview stage. While American Express asks for at least one-third representation among those appearing for job interviews, it’s 25-30% for Bharti. “We are working consciously on increasing the number of women in the company. With our HR initiatives, we plan to stress on recruitment of women at the senior and middle level since there is a large talent pool at the entry level,” says Bharti HR group director Inder Walia. Mr Walia added that soon Bharti group flagship Airtel will have a woman at a very senior position, as part of its gender diversity programme. Currently, women comprise about 20% of the group’s total workforce.

Wal-Mart is learnt to have given a mandate to its headhunting firm to recruit women for certain positions in HR and finance which are reserved for the fairer sex. When contacted, a Wal-Mart India spokesperson said: “We have a gender diversity policy globally. We will replicate the same in India.”

Technology major IBM, whose employee base in India is 53,000, has 26% representation of women. “IBM has a policy under which, we offer special incentives to recruitment consultants for getting qualified women professionals into the organisation. We also host all women recruitment camps,” says IBM India diversity lead Prathima V Shetty. Microsoft has Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Development objectives for its business leaders to identify, promote and include women and minorities as candidates for senior positions in the company.

The much-touted talent crunch will also play its role in driving companies to adopt more women-friendly policies, feel consultants. “Most diversity programmes originated in the country as part of employer branding. Today, however, given the talent shortage, these programmes are being taken more seriously. It is estimated that 25% of the IT and ITeS segment’s workforce is female and this figure is expected to grow significantly. With women having such a large representation in these industries, companies would need to build systems to attract and retain women,” says Ernst & Young’s HR Advisory global leader NS Rajan.

In fact, Shell uses the diversity and inclusiveness parameter to measure corporate performance. One of the targets for this parameter is the gender indicator which measures promotions and talent acquisition relating to women in the organisation.

That a diverse workforce is a better business proposition has also been recognised. “Cross-fertilisation of ideas at the workplace has acquired new significance with tremendous emphasis being placed on leveraging individual differences to business advantage. The ability to draw upon a diverse workforce is fast becoming a key differentiator of global companies, as women’s representation in the workforce has been identified as a factor enhancing a company’s bottom line as well as top line globally,” adds IBM’s Ms Shetty.


Source - Economic Times
Published - 28th Nov 2007