He grew the Indian team tenfold from 200 to 2000 employees and his staff now supports the company’s global operational, analytic, and IT needs. Under his leadership, Encore India has been recognized among the Top 50 Companies to Work in India by the Great Place to Work Institute, for three successive years now.

Diversity & Inclusion – we need it

Diversity in the workplace is absolutely crucial in today’s world for an enhanced ability to reach strategic goals and create better organizational outcomes. Else, there is a risk of looking at the world through the lens of limited perspective that robs us of alternate views. Diversity and inclusion are essential at all levels, aspects and quadrants of leadership.

It’s the right thing to do and how!

While having diversity and inclusion within an organization is the right thing to do morally, there is a business imperative associated with it as well. In fact, “right thing to do” in itself is the business imperative. Customers, investors and other stakeholders are increasingly giving more weightage to organizations implementing right processes. Doing the right thing is becoming more relevant than ever, especially in business. There is enough evidence to indicate that women in senior women leadership roles, board room levels or CXO positions give stellar results. Research indicates that having three or more women in the board room enables companies to produce almost 50% more ROE.

Encore on its way to real diversity and inclusion

Focusing on outcomes such as diversity numbers or growth rates of diverse talent is a great way to evaluate the progress the organization has made. However, at Encore, what we want to bring is real change. First and foremost, the focus needs to lie on creating a culture that is sensitive to the cause of diversity and is focused on inclusion. Only a complete understanding of what inclusion means can make the initiative successful. While it is easy to state that 20% of our future leaders be women, what we need to discern is whether these 20% women leaders will be successful?

Be sure of the reason and let everyone know

We have to understand what Inclusion really means. If you want to launch a program that is focused on diverse talent, you first have to connect with each and every member of your organization and help them understand the need. You need to help them be a part of the solution and not be a part of the problem. Only when they are your co-partners in implementation of that program, will your program succeed on a variety of metrics. In the context of gender diversity and inclusion, if every man wants to make women working at Encore successful, it is going to be a lot more helpful than anything Encore as an organization can do to make women successful.

Sensitization programs help

At Encore, early in our Inclusion journey, we took the significant and radical step of showcasing the importance of inclusivity at the workplace. This was done with detailed diagnostics and research including employee focus groups and leadership interviews. Our diversity partners Altavis along with Steps Drama presented these insights to all our employees through interactive theater based workshops. Though nothing has 100% conversion rate but approaching the subject through different mediums buy tetracycline usa enables you to reach out to different audiences. Some would understand data, so you need to make data available to them so that they get the magnitude of the problem. Some would understand through emotional connect. These workshops helped employees attain the “aha!” moment, that no amount of class room training or campaigning would have achieved.

Top leadership commitment is an absolute must for D&I agenda

The culture of an organization is a function of the CEO or leadership. A leader’s shortcomings and strengths manifest as shortcomings and strengths of the organization. More than anybody else, the leader needs to be connected with the value of inclusion.

Success at D&I means enabling choices

Success at diversity & inclusion means giving our employees, both men and women, the power of choice at Encore. Whether they want to have better work life balance, or to be more ambitious in their careers or to take a back seat, we need to be able to provide employees with these choices and options in their careers. We are continually focused on enhancing our policy framework to create enabling and progressive policies and inclusive, flexible benefit programs.

A leader is a leader and leadership skills are the same

Leadership expectations don’t change whether it’s a man, a woman or a person from some religion or caste or creed because leadership in essence is about serving others.Leadership is not about chasing positions and titles; it is about an individual’s ability to inspire others.

Strangely as we have taken D&I as a global initiative, we have realized that things abroad are not much different. The same themes and fears play out everywhere, their degrees may vary according to geographies and awareness levels, fundamental biases still remain. The laws or regulations just scratch the surface of the problem. Till you fully embrace what Inclusion means, it is unlikely to bring about any real change.

Message to women aspiring to be leaders or being a part of harmonious culture

The limit of your potential is set by you. If one feels discriminated, each one of us has the power within us to step up to create an inclusive environment. If the majority isn’t including, can you walk up to them and share your story? By sharing your story you have included them. The burden doesn’t necessarily rest on the rest of the world. You can take charge and create a better environment for yourself and everyone else.

D&I future for Encore and India

Fortunately, there is a growing sensitization and awareness of the need for inclusion in the corporate world. It is emerging from business needs and there will be companies that will create real inclusive culture and become beacons of change. As companies embrace this concept and witness better results, they will be inspired to invest more in it, transforming it into a virtuous cycle that keeps perpetuating itself. Hopefully organizations will also help see the impact of that in the society.

Platforms like Biz Divas have an important part to play

Biz Divas is a great initiative and it helps put into perspective that change cannot be superficial. Biz Divas as a forum is very well positioned to energize and become the catalyst to change and create an ecosystem that will sustain the change