Technology has redefined the way the world functions. The fast developing and progressive tech industry, however, tends to move at a snail’s pace when it comes to women.
Although, women make up for 40% of the world's workforce, their role in the tech industry is still under-represented and are significantly outnumbered in this domain, as per several survey reports. A 2017 study by Center for Talent Innovation found that women in tech continue to experience bias, and leave the industry at a 45% higher rate than men!
Bias against women at workplaces, was one of the hot topics discussed at Society for Human Resource Management’s (SHRM) 4thHR Technology Conference held recently in Hyderabad, India.
In line with the Indian government’s Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao scheme that aims at promoting women’s empowerment, a panel including Dr. Ritu Anand, Senior VP & Deputy Head Global HR, TCS, Manu N.Wadhwa, Head HR & Services, Coca-Cola, India & South West Asia, Parag Pande, Managing Director, Accenture and Mohinish Sinha, Partner, Deloitte India, talked about the benefits of a more inclusive workforce in the technology industry and shared their personal experiences about how they overcame challenges and made it big in their respective fields.
They agreed that a fair and unbiased opportunity for everyone, irrespective of gender and race, is the need of the hour.
However, is HR doing enough to contain bias against its women workforce?
The panel noted that HR leaders need to develop plans to overcome conscious bias against women at workplaces and help them drive and lead organizations in the field of technology.
Parag Pande shared a personal story about how his very ambitious and sports enthusiastic daughter had to give up on her favorite sport - football - as there were not many coaches interested in coaching a ‘girl’ and also because she couldn’t find anybody to play with, as boys her age feared losing to a girl!
As corporates, it is time to look at our own teams and organizations to have a diverse set of workforce and be inclusive to overcome this bias in the society, he added.
Business leaders are more number driven and data speaks louder than words. Parag also spoke on how he solved the issue of women employees quitting his organization, to an extent. “Analytics showed that women who quit jobs for maternity were more than the non-maternity cases. Hence, as a business leader, it made more sense to address the issue of maternity benefits and extend the maternity leave. With over a team of 50,000 women employees, the attrition rate dropped by 50 per cent,”
More the number of women in your team, greater will be the profit and retention, said Ritu Anand. “What gets measured gets done and hence, it important for an organization to measure the impact of its policies on its workforce. Sensitizing, and segmentizing policies for women into resource groups that enable the environment at leadership levels are key.”
“One of the primary foundations we laid at TCS was to measure the data and the differences. Outcome based approach, not checklist approach, helped us, as an organization to help retain women in the higher hierarchy. Success matters more than anything else and that is what needs to be measured,” she added.
What are we doing as a society in large to empower women entrepreneurs? According to Manu N.Wadhwa, it is all about measuring the impact of having women leaders and making sure that the workplace is more inclusive of women and her needs. He added that Coca Cola has adopted close to 1000 schools and maintains its infrastructure and amenities. It also ensures retention of girl children in schools. It is very important for all of us, as a society, to ensure that our girl child continues her education.
It is vital for organizations to ensure that the workplace is sustainable for female managers to manage different walks of her life such as marriage, child care and parental care. This, in turn, can strengthen women to pursue a career in entrepreneurship.
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Raksha Sanjay Nag is a Junior Editor at HR.com.
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