Women at workplaces: How to fix the balance

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Note to readers: Hello world is a program developers run to check if a newly installed programming language is working alright. Startups and tech companies are continuously launching new software to run the real world. This column will attempt to be the "Hello World" for the real world.

Early next month, we’ll see a strange paradox play out. On March 8, company executives, marketers, and most of corporate India will celebrate women's day and wax lyrical about women empowerment. At the same time, you will also see various acts of violence being committed against women in different parts of the country.

We’ll not discuss law and order problems here in this column. But the participation of women in workplaces is well within our ambit, especially when startups have the opportunity to hit reset. But before we get to some solutions, let’s take a look at how deep the problem runs.

Poor Numbers

Out of 1,814 chief executives and managing directors of companies listed on the National Stock Exchange as of 2019, only 67, or 3.69 percent, are women. For the second year in a row, Nifty50 companies have only 1 woman CEO.

On average, women also earn 19 percent less than men, according to the Monster Salary Index Survey. India ranked 52 out of 57 in the index of Women Entrepreneurs 2019. InnoVen Capital says that the number of startups with at least one woman co-founder that raised funding declined to 12 percent in 2019, as compared to 17 percent the previous year.

These numbers are terribly out of sync with global averages and point to several socio-cultural barriers that hamstring women in India. As India looks to grow into a five trillion economy, this will have to change. McKinsey Global Institute, predicts that India can boost its economic output by anywhere between $700 billion to $2.9 trillion by creating equal opportunities for women.

Easy Solutions, Bad Results

Some solutions are easy to see. And yet some are elusive. The companies act of 2013, section 135, says that about 2 percent of net profits of a company that are earmarked for CSR activities can include “promoting gender equality and empowering women.” Profitable startups, and larger companies that have a mission to empower women, may as well use this better.

The act also made it mandatory to have at least one woman on the board of every listed company with a capital of at least Rs 100 crore and every company with a turnover of at least Rs 300 crore. Startups should look at hiring a diverse board. It’s usually harder for startups to choose a partner from a venture capital firm on their board (VCs decide), the independent seat is a good way to bring in diversity at the top. An initiative like TheBoardlist could be very helpful.

Startup advisor and investor Elad Gil has some advice to build a diverse company: You need to build a diverse funnel of candidates you interview for jobs. You also need to eliminate biases from your interviews and provide benefits that support the needs of underrepresented employees.

To be sure, some startups are already doing this. MadStreetDen from Chennai comes to mind. The startup has a 50:50 gender policy. Freshworks, the company that I work for, has pledged to improve gender diversity across the board. Some venture capital firms have recently promoted women to higher roles. These are good signs. But clearly, there’s much ground to be covered.