How Corporate India is trying to reverse the gender stereotype

A Mckinsey 2022 report by the same firm said 40 percent of women leaders say their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work isn’t acknowledged at all in performance reviews.

Ensuring diversity at the workplace is not just a business imperative but an opportunity to unlock increased employee productivity. This results in better performance, and eventually, results.

Consulting firm Mckinsey, in a 2019 analysis, found that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25 percent more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the fourth quartile.

However, a 2022 report by the same firm said 40 percent of women leaders say their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work isn’t acknowledged at all in performance reviews. This calls for an urgent need for holistic policies to promote diversity in the workplace.

As International Women’s Day approaches, Moneycontrol explores how major companies in India Inc are approaching the equality question, keeping in mind the unique challenges of Indian women.

Infosys

IT giant Infosys’ entry-level training has been a key pillar in meeting its gender diversity objectives and it achieved gender parity a while back. However, the company’s analysis found that women who finished training quietly drop out of the workforce after a few years, primarily due to a career break for parenting.

To counter this, Infosys put in a combination of employee engagement, continuous knowledge updation, system-based tracking and HR interventions. The team adopted a communication plan to engage with employees before they went on maternity leave, during their leave and immediately after rejoining.

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“This communication kept them connected to the company and assured them that they would have the training and the flexibility required at this critical period in their career to not miss out because they were on leave,” Richard Lobo, EVP and Head of HR at Infosys, told Moneycontrol.

Secondly, Infosys built in the flexibility for an individual to return to her earlier project or a new one, as desired. Also, immediately after joining, they were put onto a cross-skilling/up-skilling plan to make up for any real or perceived loss in tech know-how.

As a result of these continuous efforts, the return percentage improved from the 50s to the 90s and the company claims it is close to achieving almost a full return for most employees who go on maternity leave.

“From a situation of losing almost half (about 3,000 employees) of a trained and competent workforce, we have reached a point of continuing to build and develop future women leaders for Infosys,” said Lobo.

Vedanta Resources

India’s largest mining company, Vedanta Resources, has a programme focusing on gender equality, called the V-Lead Initiative, to develop women CXOs, with women leaders playing an anchoring role.

The programme was launched in 2020 by its Vice Chairman, Navin Agarwal, to include more women in decision-making bodies and started with the organisation identifying 100 high-potential women leaders across the

Vedanta Group based on their performance, potential, education background, business exposure and operations background focus.

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Alongside this, the programme also identified ‘Senior Leadership Anchors’, each one of whom would work as a mentor to 4-5 women leaders of the programme. Under this initiative, women leaders reflect on their experience and seek feedback and professional help from anchors/mentors and work towards their development.

“We are currently in Phase 3 of this initiative, where we have 120 women leaders and 25 anchors nurturing them. We have elevated 80 women leaders to leadership roles and two of them are now anchors of the initiative itself,” Madhu Srivastava, group chief HR officer of Vedanta Resources, told Moneycontrol.

Tata Steel

One of the pioneering initiatives by Indian multinational steel-making company Tata Steel to ensure gender equality in the workplace is called Women@Mines.

Launched in 2019 in its Ores, Mines & Quarries (OMQ) division, Tata Steel became the first company in India to deploy women in all shifts in mines, including functions such as mining, electrical/mechanical maintenance, and beneficiation.

Subsequently, a similar initiative to induct women in all three shifts as HEMM (Heavy Earth Moving Machinery) operators was also taken at the company’s coal mines in the West Bokaro division.

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“Traditionally, HEMM operations were done only by male employees and this was a big step towards breaking this stereotype,” said Atrayee Sanyal, VP of HR Management at Tata Steel, adding that the first batch of trainees has completed training and is currently successfully running HEMM equipment at mines.

After observing the learning agility of the first batch and their quick adoption of the best practices, the management decided to reduce the training period for the second to six months instead of a year. This has paved the way for many such future batches and larger inclusion of women in the mainstream operation in Mines and other divisions of Tata Steel.

As of February 2023, the percentage of women in the workforce stood at 7.57 percent, with the highest-ever intake of women (around 40 percent) in both the white-collared and blue-collared workforce.

Godrej & Boyce

126-year-old engineering major Godrej & Boyce has created an enabling work culture and processes wherein women work in shop floor operations. For example, approximately 40 percent of the workers on the shopfloor of its locks factory are women, in supervisory, core manufacturing, accounts roles and so on.

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Besides, the electronics development department in Goa is an all women’s department, and is also led by a woman engineer.

“At Godrej & Boyce, there is a healthy participation of women trainees and employees in all initiatives for improvement and innovation — Kaizens, Process Improvements, Sprint etc,” said Harpreet Kaur, SVP & Head of Corporate Personnel and Administration, Godrej & Boyce.