Beyond a pregnant pause

Gender parity at workplace was the slogan this year’s Women’s Day. Countries across the world recognised the fact that women constitute a large part of the talent pool and professional workforce and can no longer be relegated to the shadows due to their societal and familial responsibilities. The talk of boys’ jobs and girls’ jobs is shunned as outdated by most of the youngsters that one comes across in colleges and universities, and such notions are branded retrograde for the success and progress of a business. However, there still are miles to go before parity will be achieved in workplace. Let’s take a look at some of the pressing women-centric issues that India Inc is addressing by making changes and adopting a positive attitude

Swati Rai

Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, famously opined that ‘women can’t have it all’ in a conversation with David G. Bradley a few years ago. She spoke about her personal and professional tussle as a woman employee, wife and a mother. She stirred many a feminist to opine otherwise. Being a woman and a full-time employee, be it at any stage of professional life is a compromise, without sugarcoating the truth.

Starting a family has long been associated with the end of a woman’s career growth. While many never return to the high-profile positions held before childbirth, a number of others accept lower-paid positions or jobs for which they are, in fact, overqualified just because the work hours are more convenient and they can fit in their family obligations around those. Even in countries like UK and Scotland women are over-represented in lower-paid professions. According to data available almost 57 per cent of women are in such employment in these countries, as against 37 per cent of men, and they are under-represented in the workplace generally, especially in senior positions. The figures for India are more depressing.

Four years ago 28-year-old, Sunita Sharma (name changed) a white collar employee in a Mumbai suburb had to quit her well-paying job in a corporate headquartered in a skyscraper. Why? “The attitude of the company since the news of my pregnancy made a surreptitious change in my profile and training programmes that I was being assigned. An unnatural sense of competition then seeps in, where you are trying to outdo, younger and junior colleagues. There is a sense of uncertainty and ultimately the company has to make a decision of substituting expecting and also new mums to help secure a good continuity at the cost of experience”, she rues.

At a time when flexi work and work from home has become the new buzzword in workplace matters — a study by Grant Thornton (2013), found that about 48 per cent of women employees below 30 quit their employment due to the requirements of the social and familial roles. India’s current gross domestic product (GDP) could rise by up to 2 per cent, if these women, continue at the workplace.

Sensitive workspaces

However, there is truth in the fact that most companies are going out of their way to make work spaces, women friendly — what with facilities such as work-from-home option, flexi work hours, cab pick-and-drop, crèche assistance in recognising their role as the primary caregiver in the family.

The latest to add to this buzz are the reports that the Ministry of Labour has proposed to increase maternity leave for employees by amending the Maternity Benefits Act 1961 for women employees in the private sector from what it is now (12 weeks) to the new 26 weeks. This makes India among the top 16 countries to give the longest paid leave for new mums.

While the Factories Act 1948 makes it mandatory to have a crèche in factories employing more than 30 women, the Ministry of Labour is expected to introduce a new provision in the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, which will mandate all establishments with 30 women or 50 employees, whichever is less, to ensure employees have access to crèches in the vicinity.

Corporates and new start-ups, too, are getting more sensitive towards the needs of new moms now. Microsoft India has enhanced maternity leave policy to six months and to top that it has extended flexible working arrangement for up to 24 months. Ritu Kapur, Co Founder, The Quint, talks about the policies in her organisation, “Our company is at a nascent stage and most of our women employees are young. We do believe in a robust women friendly workplace. We follow the existing norm of providing three months’ paid maternity leave. We are also open to facilitating employees extending their leave to set the support system at home going”.

Whistling Woods International, Mumbai, will also be offering six months’ paid maternity leave, establish a baby care room in the campus, flexible working hours for mothers from 11 am till 5 pm and give the option of working from home for a year.

Elaborating on the rationale behind this change, Meghna Ghai Puri, President, Whistling Woods International shares, “Being a mother of two, I brought both my kids to work from the time they turned three months. I fed them for a year and I could only do this because there was a place for me to keep them in my workplace. Hence I understand the importance of this. I strongly believe that men and women need to give time and be happy parents to be happy workers. So keeping this in mind, we have ensured that even fathers are eligible for extended paternity leave and all employees to an additional parental leave even when their kids grow up. I feel women are passionate and loyal workers and leaders. They can bring a different sense of empathy and joy to a work place”.

Better workplace facilities for women employees increase the retention rate says Dr. Ragini Agrawal, Gynaecologist and Clinical Director of W-Hospital by Pratiksha, Gurgaon. “By facilitating the maternity leave and other concessions, an organisation along with 100 per cent compliance of employee rights, also gains higher employee satisfaction”.

Ready for challenges

But, providing such facilities is just one end of the spectrum. Unhampered career growth and providing a level-playing field to women post childbirth is what a majority of new-age moms are looking for now. A number of women returning after maternity break want to take up challenging roles in their organisations and managements have to recognise this. There is hope in this regard as was evident in a recent incidence of a woman employee of Axis Bank being given a challenging role in a main branch after her return from maternity break. At Godrej Consumer Products Ltd (GCPL) an HR manager who joined back after two year maternity break, was assigned the national sales HR role, which she not only accepted but also excelled when it came to delivering results and is currently leading international HR for sales vertical, India and SAARC. And these are no exceptions as companies like HCL Technologies, IBM, MTS, Dabur India, Tata Group, Telenor etc are all on the bandwagon to carve out key roles for women joining back after maternity breaks.

Enumerating the need for a better appraisal system for women, Saba Adil, Chief People Officer Aegon Life Insurance says that companies are now willing to have favourable appraisals for high performers who take a maternity break. “There are in recent times instances wherein women have not only experienced an impartial performance appraisal but have also been promoted based on their performance and potential. We specifically evaluate an employee based on performance for the period she was present and extend that level of performance for the year as opposed to giving them a default rating of 'meets expectations' because that employee was on leave for most part of the year", says Adil.

Elaborating on an initiative launched by her bank, ICICI Bank’s Chanda Kochhar said women are forced to quit their jobs or take leaves due to ‘life stage needs’ like maternity and child care, which can be taken care of by an ability to do the same job from home.

“Women can contribute to the best of their abilities even while working from home. Women employees can avail of this programme for an extended period of time, depending on their needs,” she said, adding that women in core functions can also work from home.

The bank has created a secure system with the help from IIT-Delhi which will allow them to undertake critical functions, like checking documents for disbursement of loans and cheque clearance.

Thus, workplaces around us are evolving not only as more gender sensitive but also as more proactive places as far as career ambitions of women are concerned and this indeed is a huge plus and something to celebrate this Women’s Day.