Speaking at the Nasscom Women IT Leaders summit, Mr. Karnik said, “There is a clear trend of more educated young women joining the industry because of progressive and flexible human resource management policies. IT does not require any gender-specific skills”……………

Education dictated the arrival of women into employment pool and not the gender. Companies have also taken cognizance of this fact and enabled gender inclusive environment, policies and Human resource management.

Today, almost 35% of the work forces in the industry are women.

CEO’s and Project Directors are given clear goals on ‘gender diversity’.

Despite of all of this, the percentage of women in the Management positions has been rather low. There are various nuances to this issue. One of the primary and sometimes singular reasons for this state is the inherent fear factor for a woman around being able to balance the responsibility of being a super mother and a super successful career woman. While this cannot be generalized this is true for a good majority of women at work today.

If we ponder on some of the possible factors, here is what collectively all involved could do to enable more women in leadership:

With this collaborative effort, we might achieve a meritocracy, where people succeed based on their ability and accomplishments, not just on their gender.

Padmaja Chowdary
Vice President, C3i Support Services & Member HYSEA Managing Committee

As March 8 approaches, there is a flurry of activity in gift and greeting card shops. A substantial amount of newsprint is devoted to this day, universally marked as the International Women’s Day. It is a truly unique part of the annual event calendar, for it celebrates womanhood, but encourages both halves of the world to pay homage to it.

It also gives me a very suitable occasion to pen down my experiences as a woman associate at ADP India. Today, women have entered into the mainstream of every walk of life. We are at the forefront of a gigantic change that is sweeping across all industries and professions – breaking stereotypes in boardrooms, and in numerous little cubicles and desks across the corporate world. When I joined ADP India, I realized just how much I was a part of this change.

When I first stepped into the ITES sector, most people were skeptical. The general perception hovered around long hours spent in the dead of the night, and a myriad of problems that a hapless late-night BPO worker could encounter. Most of my friends greeted my decision with four standard questions: A. How do you go to the Office? B. Do you get a pick up & drop? C. Is it safe during nights? D. Do you have maternity leave benefit? The answers, from day one, were very simple: A. Easily, with a lot of enthusiasm. B. Yes. C. Yes. D. And Yes.

It is crucial that every woman associate feels safe and comfortable with the Facilities provided at their workplace, that they to enjoy coming to work, and have the opportunities to grow and develop as people and as professionals. At ADP India, it was very clear to me that I had scored big on all of these aspects.

Take transportation as an example. The administration has left few stones unturned in their efforts to provide the safest commute possible to their women associates. Woman associates at ADP India have a security guard accompanying them if they are the last to be dropped and first to be picked up. We also have a gymnasium catering specifically to women associates, along with a lady instructor to guide our fitness regimes on all week days.

Associate-friendly policies are the norm, with the special mention of maternity leave. Women associates going on maternity leave can choose to avail of long term special leaves to look after their infants. When it comes to advancements, there is no discrimination on any front – merit and merit alone matters here.

We at ADP India, have taken up a new responsibility – that of having a women’s forum that will primarily concentrate on hiring, career growth, personal development, and counseling on personal & professional issues. The goal is to have nurture more women leaders. Focus groups and meetings have been conducted to capture various thoughts on what we can do and how best we can do it. This is a wonderful initiative and a great challenge that ADP India leadership has vowed to turn into a success.

This is only the beginning. I have a very strong feeling that there is a lot more in store, and many more reasons why women associates have and will choose to join ADP India and be a part of the ‘We Enjoy Coming To Work Everyday!’ experience.

Radhika Nannapaneni
ADP Private Limited

From the outside, the IT industry may look like a 'Men’s' club, but increasing market demand for technology solutions and the explosive growth in the industry is compelling companies to identify and promote new opportunities for women to excel and become leaders in IT. I believe that it's a matter of choice that women are not as involved in the IT field, as much as they are in other fields like service industry, banking and FMCG.

So the question really is that why women don't believe they have it in them to play a role in this IT industry?

At the same time, there are many successful women in the field of IT, which show that deserving women do find their place in IT industry with players like Meena Ganesh (COO, Contact Centre Business, ICICI OneSource), Kalpana Margabandhu, (General Manager, IBM India Software Labs), Neelam Dhawan, (Director Sales, HP India), Susheela Venkatraman, (Head of Oracle practice at IBM), Poornima Shenoy, (Regional Head NASSCOM).

Most of the IT companies are going back to school to encourage students, especially women to ensure that generation next is empowered with the ambition and educational skills to make the crossover into professions of the future.

Challenges

Great team player, strong problem-solving skills, ability to juggle a variety of issues simultaneously, flexibility, ability to offer creative solutions to problems... every boss wants for his company…. Studies show most workplaces already employ such people, and they're called women. Yet the visibility of Indian women in technology is still low compared to a lot of other professions.

Most of the prominent names in the IT industry today are of people in their 40's and 50's, who have been around for over 20 years. Women engineers started coming out in good numbers only by the early 80's and the social factors force women to opt out of the race midway. It also requires a significant investment of personal bandwidth to go the extra mile and network with other people from the industry.

While women tend to network well socially, in the business sense, they seem to lag behind men. In fact, a survey that studied the networking propensities of both men and women found out that women were more likely to network with people both at lower levels than themselves, as well as those at the higher levels. Men tended to focus on people with power and influence. Women traditionally tend to be pre-occupied with home and family once they are outside office, while men have the old-boys' network that helps them clinch business deals.

Perhaps the lack of initiative and awareness of career opportunities in the technical sphere is another reason. Infrastructure facilities pertaining to higher education in rural areas still remains the area of concern. While there are plenty of women at the mid-management level, the numbers are decreasing at the senior level.

The biggest challenge for most women in this field is to strike a balance between home and career.

HR’s attempt

HR’s small step towards this initiative will be big leap in IT’s trend

Education is, by far, women's most powerful secret weapon. The best hope to crash through that glass ceiling is to get the finest possible foundation for a successful career in the form of education and training.

HR can identify and assign a mentor! Mentors can both protect women from discrimination and also be great sources of inspiration, information and career guidance on how to navigate their way past obstacles to career success.

The higher women climb the IT ladder, the more they are expected to travel and often they are away on long breaks. Perhaps when they return from such business trips, they should be given a few days off to sort out family matters.

The Le Concierge Service that most companies offer should start playing a more broad-based role.

Career planning is important for everyone, more so far women because they generally have to overcome more number of hurdles and speed breakers along the road to career success compared to men. Having a clear road map and unambiguous long-term goals makes it easier for every one to focus on ones career path in the long run. Career counseling at organizations can be the differentiating factor and can generate better results in this front.

Women have to become as comfortable as men discussing business outside the office and nurture a network that can help them get ahead in their careers. Seminars, Workshops, role plays at various levels would be apt solution to imbibe more confidence in women workforce.

By,
Lakshmi Sangam
HR Manager-Prime KI Software Solutions India Pvt Ltd.