Feature

How gender sensitive is your company?

Vinita Gupta on the polices formulated by IT companies to address issues of gender sensitivity and include women as an equal workforce

IT is regarded as being a new avenue of employment that is particularly women-friendly, and because it is ‘knowledge work’ there is no scope for discrimination on the basis of gender. The flexibility of timings and work processes (including the possibility of home-based teleworking) are also supposed to encourage women to enter this sector.

However, while there is a larger proportion of women working in IT compared to many other sectors, and the industry has opened up an avenue for the employment of female engineering graduates, there are still several gender-related issues that need to be highlighted.

While information technology-related professions appear to provide good opportunities for women, there are also processes of exclusion operating within the IT industry itself, despite its efforts to institute women-friendly policies.

Women @ work

It is true that women are joining the IT industry but are they included as an equal workforce in an IT organization (as the men are considered more tech savvy)?

Rohini Sachitanand, Manager, HR, Diversity and Inclusion, Hewlett-Packard India revealed that this is a concept constructed socially and culturally based on biological differences.

She said, “This is not a phenomenon we see within the IT industry. Look at the thrust on hiring women in the IT industry. One might argue that the thrust exists because of inequities. But I see that the focus exists because of the long standing cultural and social divides in India only. Finally, if one speaks to some of the senior most women in HP, as we have done on numerous occasions, they will all consistently state the same thing—that they have been treated and given the same status as men, they have not been discriminated against based on their gender and they are where they are because of their knowledge, contributions and what they have to offer in the future, to HP.”

Piyush Khaitan, Founder, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Venture Infotek mentioned that traditionally it was expected from the women to take care of the house and children. This mindset is changing now. Women now can take up careers which require long working hours or extensive traveling or being away from home for longer periods. The environment is now conducive for women taking new ventures or to the extent taking higher responsibilities. Now gender is not a limiting factor in their career growth.

“In the early days, one would find only 6%-7% of women in an engineering college, but today the percentage had increased drastically, say around 48%-50%. But still women do not prefer mechanical engineering as it involves more physical work, but slowly they will. I feel if given time and opportunity women can enter any field. It’s very important that awareness needs to be brought among women,” believed Srimathi Shivashankar, Principal Diversity Officer, Infosys Technologies.

Managing people

Within the IT workforce women tend to be over-represented in the lower level jobs such as programming and testing, and under-represented in higher level and managerial jobs such as architecture, consulting and project management.

It could be said that there are differences between the way men and women manage people. Having said this, a manager is successful based on how s/he manages the business deliverables and people mix in a given ecosystem.

Sachitanand felt that men and women do perhaps differ in how they communicate. For instance, a man might be very comfortable asking for a salary hike/promotion upfront. However, a woman would perhaps say that her work will speak for itself.

She said, “Exercising authority depends largely on many factors—upbringing, the kind of opportunities one has had to exercise, authority, the freedom one is given to do so, the kind of person one is, etc. Theory and some studies do say that men are able to exercise authority more than women. At HP, our inclusive environment sees our women employees exercising their authority as much as their male counterparts.”

According to Khaitan, in general, women are more sensitive to the emotions and empathetic, whereas men are logical and rational. Both are right in their approach. He added, “In the organization, an employee has to deliver results irrespective of gender. It is the expectations from the position (at whatever level or hierarchy he or she is), which drives exercising the authority.”

Shivashankar said, “Certain research says that women excel in getting the team together because of their nature, good communication and networking skills and I think men should learn these from them.”

Tackling the issue

Companies are looking at gender sensitivity and therefore policies like sexual harassment redressal, childcare facilities; working from home, reduced working hours for new mothers etc., are implemented across organizations.

Venture Infotek’s endeavor is to create a non discriminatory environment with equality of opportunity to all its employees so that they give their best at the workplace. The organization has taken several other steps to ensure the wellbeing of women in their organization, such as reduced number of working hours for new mothers. Even at the time of any crisis like terror strikes, excessive rains or any other natural calamity, extra care is taken for the safety of women, including providing escorts till home.

The policies or forums practiced to avoid gender sensitivity at Venture Infotek include implementation of sexual harassment redressal policy; ethics policy and corporate social responsibility guidelines.

HP’s diversity and inclusion philosophy is “Putting differences to work around the world”—the company has strengthened their long-held commitment to diversity and a culture of inclusion to respond to the marketplaces, workplaces and communities in the 21st century.

“We have ensured that our global team reflects the marketplace; that diversity and inclusion are woven into the fabric of mainstream business thinking and practice throughout HP,” said Sachitanand.

Infosys has won the Nasscom award for gender inclusion for the second consecutive year. Infosys was announced as a winner on the basis of their improvements on inclusivity practices over the last year, the accountability and replicability of the inclusivity programs and the data tracked to indicate the barrier free environment they create for women.

Shivashankar added, “Infosys has the IWIN network in place, which began in 2003, which implements best practices on gender sensitivity policies, across countries and now IWIN has around 130 partners in place to help the employees. We have day care centres, the ‘Stay Connected’, health and counseling programs, and the company encourages flexi-working hours for women in particular. Infosys regularly holds gender sensitivity workshops, parenting workshops, offers sabbaticals to employees and also encourages young mothers to use the satellite office and holds professional counseling sessions.”

Though women are expected to fulfill different expectations, including managing relationships, the gender does not come in the way of their career growth. The same forces exist in society today as earlier. Yet we see more women in the workforce and more wanting to be. Women are therefore breaking those barriers and coming into their own, which is indeed heartening.

Professionalism, performance, results; these are some of the buzz words in all organizations today that all women and men need to follow. Women have started getting their dues and are being rewarded for their contribution in the organizational goals achievements.

vinita.gupta@expressindia.com