By Yavnika Khanna, Capgemini India

Early April morning, leaders from across the nation congregated in the capital to think,discuss and collaborate on themes relevant to modern women who are at the forefront of positive change. Capgemini supported the event as a partner to support the ideas of Diversity at the workplace. As one of the delegates from Capgemini, I would like to share my experience.

Attendees:

The conference saw attendence from accomplished men & women in diverse fields: diplomats, founders of non-profit organizations, management professionals of for-profit outfits, heads of large corporations, legal eagles and media persons. Darshana Ogale, Senior V.P, represented Capgemini as a speaker.

Guiding Themes:

• Recent changes in India about greater women participation in work force, comparisons with other nation’s experiences 
• Should “THE RATIO” be even a discussion point at work place? Why should women be treated differently: favorably or unfavorably? Why do we or organizations need to do anything different?
• Is there a business case for more women participation in business/entrepreneurship/ corporate world?
• Why are they not enough women at the top leadership positions even when we have a greater yield of educated women, and entry level joiners?
• Why do women face a “glass ceiling” at mid- management level?
• What are the common organizational and country-level strategies for recruitment, retention and mentoring of women leaders?
• Are women themselves responsible for this state of affairs, where they stand underrepresented in most areas, especially when it comes to leading large corporations and starting businesses?
• How to manage expectations of being perfect wife, employee, leader, daughter, mother, etc.? Are they valid expectations from self or are they externally imposed by society?

Proceedings in Brief:

Since the World War II, women recorded high labor market participation. During the war, many male soldiers were away, and women had to take up jobs en-masse, to support their families and keep the local economy on track. While women still contribute to their communities in many regions mainly through agricultural work. But over the past five decades, women have shown higher education levels, greater economic independence and social mobility. They have excelled in several other fields, where they were historically excluded. This social shift has impacted society, markets and organisations.

Women as a broad demographic group have faced unique occupational challenges, which were discussed in the panels:

• Prohibitions or restrictions on studying, entering or pursuing a field 
• Discrimination within occupation including wage, management, and prestige hierarchies 
• Access to capital
• Networking barriers
• Expectations and sterotyping: Societal and from self about their role
• Typical behavioral responses like “Leaning in”, lack of assertiveness or willingness to take positions with high uncertainity
• Work-life balance related matters: women are much likely to take a mid – career break due to family for example.  

Organisations in turn, have realised that in globalised world, where the war for talent is reality, markets have women as consumers and producers, they must recognise and address the gender diversity issue. Beyond the business imperative, organisations as part of the ecosystem must act human and provide equal if not greater scope for women in their gambit. The conference panels discussed strategies and solutions of such interventions. These included:

• Adopting diversity- friendly recruitment, retention and promotion strategies
• Identifying and grooming talent to help women employees bridge the proverbial ‘glass ceiling’
• Facilitating networking and mentoring platforms within organisation and industry 
• Women should be encouraged to be more open and willing to take risks. They must get out of their comfort zones and take on opportunities which will challenge them and result in broadening their outlook.

Indeed, a positive and collaborative work environment is the greatest welfare program any organisation or its management can attempt to enable.

Conference Panels: Highlights: The conference touched upon challenges that women entrepreneurs and employees face at various phases in their career track, and identify tangible solutions and tools that they can adopt to succeed. Speakers shared experiences of organisations which have successfully recognised this need and implemented positive change in this direction. The conference panelists noted that in the globalised world corporations with a diverse, dynamic and an extremely mobile workforce can be a sustainable competitive advantage. In an interesting session, Capgemini’s Gayathri Ramamurthy was a panelist to discuss the best practices at a focus group discussion on various aspects of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) at workplace. Another panel considered the value of bringing in men as partners in the process of realizing potential of women and approaches to achieve that objective. Given the important role of men in creating collaborative environments, the panelists concluded that empathy and education must be inculcated as part of organisation-wide initiatives.

Quotable Quotes From The Conference Speakers:

Darshana Ogale, Senior Vice President, Capgemini India: 4 pillars of corporate strategy around diversity: How are organizations creating a pipeline of women leaders, grooming/ mentoring them, retaining them and introducing corporate sensitivity around diversity related issues?

Donald Lu, DCM, US Embassy

Organizations and countries should think about why does it take so long for women to get their due?

Kaku Nakhate, President & Country Head, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, India

Women in Asia are not groomed to be independent. The Asian culture is to protect and help grow, but children especially girls must be raised to face challenges and think big

Pratik Pota, CEO & MD ,NourishCo Beverages Ltd.

Growth of women in the organization should be made central to the organization. Include in the KPIs of managers. Specific targets are required for this in organizations so that there is a clear and constant vision about this issue

Jennifer Taylor, COO Asia Pacific, Bank of America

Organizations need to recognize that women’s issues are distinct. They must groom and highlight role models.