Building on women power

The Indian IT-BPO industry, a knowledge-based sector, has always attempted to include a larger number of women in its workforce. Companies in the sector have remained fairly gender neutral, creating flexibility in their policies to accommodate the special needs of women professionals.

Som Mittal, President, NASSCOM believes that – “Indian companies no longer view gender inclusivity as a Corporate Social Responsibility activity, but as a business imperative. That’s because in 2007-08, the IT industry had 28 per cent women in its workforce compared to 24 per cent in 2005-06. At the entry level, in 2005-06, 38 per cent were women compared to 47 per cent in 2007-08. Two years ago, only four companies had formal defined policies for gender diversity and this year, the number has risen to 80. Additionally, a survey of 50 companies has revealed that women account for 11 per cent of the leadership roles in senior management.

The Indian IT-BPO industry, in fact, has become synonymous with some truly pioneering work related to women employees, and the sector, more than other industries in India, has been launching initiatives designed to promote the interests of women in their workplace. Commenting on the existing scenario, Joel Perlman, President & Co-founder, Copal Partners says, “there is a growing acceptance within companies that gender inclusivity leads to more diverse, open and innovative organisations”.

Tracy Ann Curtis, Chief inclusion and diversity officer, APAC, Cisco Systems agrees, adding that having an inclusive and diverse culture is imperative for any global company, as it leads to employee engagement, fosters innovation and brings in a wealth of ideas, innovation and energy into the organisation.

Yet other organisations such as Aricent believe that gender inclusivity is crucial to attracting and retaining the right talent, which further contributes to a healthy work environment within the enterprise.

Recognising women power

The focus on women by the IT-BPO industry is in part an acknowledgment of their growing role in India’s economy. Analysts state that there is a direct correlation between the employment of women and the economic well being of a nation.
IT-BPO companies have also been quick to realise that women possess qualities that make them particularly suited for jobs within the industry. “Women bring with them their unique and commanding brand of leadership. They bring distinct personality and motivational strengths to leadership roles. They seamlessly bring on board qualities like empathy and emotional intelligence in their decision-making process. Women learn to manage conflict as an intrinsic skill,” states Sucharita Palepu of Satyam.

Gearing up to be gender neutral

No wonder then that Satyam has introduced a range of policies that cater to the specific requirements of women and enable them to take on leadership roles. Extended maternity leave (including adoption leave), paternity leave, escorted drop for women after extended hours at work, a transit policy (for women travelling alone ) and showcasing “Role Models” to encourage younger women to aspire for leadership positions are some of the steps that the organisation has taken over the past few years to remain diverse and gender inclusive.

Recognising the growing influence of women power, IT-BPO organisations have been gearing up to catalyse their growth and provide them with rewarding careers.

An important goal for Aricent, therefore, is to remain flexible and supportive when it comes to meeting the needs of employees, including both men and women. The company has focussed its energies on providing an ethical and safe workplace with a non-discriminatory work culture. This ensures that the company attracts and retains the right talent among women as well. The open work culture and initiatives such as the “Flexible working hours” allows women employees to balance their work life. Aricent has a formal ethical code of conduct to prevent and address any kind of harassment related issues as well. Women in senior positions also serve as positive role models for other employees.

Embracing Best Practices in HR to serve the needs of women employees

The IT-BPO industry has taken a lead in adopting Best Practices in the areas of HR to attract women employees and emerge as a preferred career destination for these professionals. Companies, especially the large players, have undertaken the following to encourage gender diversity within their realms including the following:

• Fostered a “culture of inclusion” as a business imperative and recognised gender inclusivity as a key factor in organisational agility, innovation and success.
• Remained open to accepting the different capabilities that women bring into the workplace and created a nurturing environment for them to take leadership roles.
• Set up special cells, and introduced policies and processes that spur women participation, especially at the higher levels of decision-making.
• Made the security and dignity of female employees a priority. ITES-BPO companies which have non-conventional working hours, have been frontrunners in introducing stringent policies to ensure the security of women workers.

Take the instance of Intelenet Global Services Pvt. Ltd., which believes it is crucial to have an inclusive workforce and has designed several company policies centered around the specific requirements of women employees.

Intelenet is an Equal Opportunity Employer and has always believed in and supported equal opportunity for all professionals at the workplace. We believe that mentoring is the best way to motivate and encourage women to reach their full potential and help them through the challenges of balancing a demanding career and a family. I have personally mentored several women in senior positions at Intelenet.

Radhika Balasubramanian, COO, Intelenet domestic BPO Operations

According to Rekha Menon, Executive Vice President, India Geographic Services & Human Capital & Diversity, Accenture, the commitment to building, maintaining and expanding an inclusive culture is central to Accenture’s ongoing success. For Accenture, gender diversity begins at the recruitment stage itself. “Accenture has a focussed recruitment campaign designed to attract women employees. The campaign includes a metrics-based recruitment process, a referral programme, a strong connection with colleges dedicated to providing women education, a tailored advertising campaign and weekend recruitment events,” informs Menon.

At the same time, the company has evolved several policies which have enabled it to emerge as a gender inclusive enterprise, such as the Global flexible work arrangement; the Maternity Returners Programme, which helps ease the transition for new parents back into the workforce by providing career guidance and support for finding ideal re-entry roles; Child Care centres; Vaahini, a formal community of all women employees where they can share experiences and create opportunities to learn and grow, a women networking portal and Gender Sensitisation training for supervisors and counsellors to help them understand and appreciate diversity and engage and manage employees successfully.

For Copal Partners, gender diversity is about being intolerant to sexual harassment or gender discrimination, having an egalitarian compensation policy, ensuring that the recognition and growth are based on merit, providing security to female employees and promoting gender-fair language within the company.

At Cisco, women are being provided flexibility at various stages of their careers. While maternity leave and leave of absence are available, the company also allows employees to make a gradual transition instead of being in a binary “at work” or “off work” situation. Referred to as “on-ramp” and “off-ramp,” women employees who are “on-ramp” can focus aggressively on their careers while opting to “off-ramp” when required by reducing workloads.

At the same time, Cisco has crafted employee-friendly policies like flexi-time, working from home, etc. for all employees, which are supported by high technologies capabilities such as network connectivity, laptops, VoIP, among others, available from home. The company has created a level playing field where all employees, irrespective of gender share the same facilities.

Building women leaders

Nurturing women leaders is yet another area of focus for IT-BPO companies. In order to prepare its women employees to take on key roles within the company, Accenture has in place a 14-month India leadership development programme for high potential, senior women managers and a “Developing high performing women programme” to enable women managers to develop relevant skills as part of their career journey. Career counselling and mentoring for women executives is another effort targeted at taking women employees to the top.

“At Copal Partners we encourage women employees, who form 35 per cent of our workforce, to have a greater sense of the extraordinary challenges of leadership. We invite them to think creatively about how they can chart out a growth path for themselves within the organisation,” Perlman says.

At Cisco, building women leaders is about offering these employees numerous training and development opportunities. The vibrant Women’s Action Network (WAN) – a volunteer employee network within the company – empowers all levels of women to develop influencing and leadership skills that support their career growth. At the same time, Women’s Leadership Development programmes are also being run for women across APAC and at a corporate level, and employees are being regularly exposed to women role models, to understand some of the leadership challenges that they may have faced. Mentoring, mentoring circles and coaching are the other key pillars of Cisco’s gender inclusivity drive and have enabled the company to improve the percentage of women on its rolls year-after-year.

The next steps

While already a significant amount of work is being done to by IT-BPO companies to encourage women employees on their rosters, more can be done. There are still a large number of areas where women-friendly policies and facilities simply do not exist, a fact that can greatly deter women from entering or staying on in the IT-BPO industry. At the same time, not enough women employees have reached the top rungs of the corporate ladder and there are even fewer in the boardroom.

A study by Accenture, launched on International Women’s Day this year, that examines the future, the challenges and opportunities for working women around the globe, has thrown up interesting insights. The Report, “One Step Ahead of 2011—A New Horizon for Working Women,” which is based on a survey of more than 4,000 male and female business professionals in 17 countries across Europe, Asia, North America and South America, has indicated the following:

• Just 43 per cent of women professionals surveyed currently feel well-equipped to compete in the global business economy of the future.
• Women in several key emerging markets – particularly India, China and Brazil – appear to be better equipped than their female counterparts in many developed markets.
• Women cited gender, the need to devote energy to children/family, and an unwillingness to relocate as the factors that most limited their careers, (cited by just 23 per cent, 22 per cent and 18 per cent of female respondents, respectively).
• More than 8 in 10 women (83 per cent) said they were willing to learn and use new technologies, such as blogs or social networks, as a means of achieving future success.

Outlining organisational policies and processes

Based on the above inputs and the overall market indicators, IT-BPO companies must further refine their policies and processes to strongly influence the participation of women in key projects.

Looking ahead, companies must identify formal and informal procedures that can be restructured to encourage participation of women in organisational activities. Companies have to understand the requirements of women to make the work environment even more friendly and conducive and draw and retain rightly skilled women talent. Providing women employees with continuous learning, mentoring, coaching and counselling, offering them opportunities for self development and encouraging them to take on higher responsibilities and onsite projects are some of the initiatives that IT-BPO companies need to roll out today to incentivise women workers and make the industry, as a whole, an attractive and preferred career destination for them.

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