Gurgaon is a Millenium city that takes pride in being host to top Fortune 500 companies in India and an ever-increasing corporate population. But how many women CEOs can it boast of? it’s anyone’s guess – most likely the answer is none. Metros like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore can still claim to have a handful of women CEOs, predominantly from the financial sector.
It is this kind of compelling numbers along with a strong business case for diversity which has woken up India Inc. to a harsh reality. The percentages of women at mid to senior levels are shrinking, which means as women gain more experience, they are dropping out faster.
Today organizations have realized that having diversity at senior management level adds depth and perspective to key decision making. Organizations today are keen on improving gender diversity at senior management level.
According to organizations, the quickest remedy to this situation is diversity hiring. So the head hunters are incentivized to provide women candidates for an additional 2-3% of hiring charges. But the larger question remains, where is the pool of talent? There is abysmally low number for women already and what we are trying to do here is to place talent from one organization to the other. However, while it may up the numbers for a few organizations, it would reduce numbers from others. After all, the talent pool hasn’t changed significantly in the last few years.
As a head hunter specializing in Diversity Hiring, I face this challenge all the time. There is a small pool of talent available and we all head hunters are chasing the same women more often than not.
The bigger pool of talent will be available once the women who have taken a career break are given a second chance. There are a few organizations who already have robust plans for the same. They are offering flexi-working to accomodate to work-life balance, providing work-from-home options before gradually moving back to a full time office role.
It is great to witness corporates trying to woo Indian women back to employment. We, as women who are looking for second career, need to be more focused, determined and committed to given opportunity. We need to be role models and encourage our fellow women friends on a sabbatical to join back the work force.
