Why the Shrinking Pipeline and the Digital Barrier Matter: What Can Companies Do About It

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Why the Shrinking Pipeline and the Digital
Barrier Matter What Can Companies Do About It

• Rekha Jain
• Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad
• rekha_at_iimahd.ernet.in

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Background

Rekha Jain, Asha Kaul, Gender Resource Centre
Report on Crossing the Digital Barrier
Leadership Issues for Women in the IT BPO Sector

• To provide recommendations to organizations and
  women on increasing the numbers and profile of
  women within the organization
• Survey based on women in MNCs, BPOs, Large
  Indian Companies and SMEs.
• Junior level 224 (24 companies)
• Middle Level 174 (26 companies)
• Senior Level 135 (35 companies)
• Future Study should emerge as an outcome of this
  study and include men.

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Why Focus on Women?

• Because it makes business sense
• Extreme crunch on human resources Need to tap
  and build women (nearly a third of the entry
  level work force)

• Shrinking pipeline, glass ceiling
• Implications for future growth of women both
  quality and quantity.
• Business case for diversity, specifically gender

Source Dataquest Survey ttp//dqindia.ciol.com/c
ontent/strategy/hrd/103063001.asp. Retrieved 1
July 2007
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Background

• Disparity in number of women in IT with predicted
  trends or expansion in the sector
• Women often on the periphery of an employing
  organization as their participation based on a
  continuation of traditional gender roles. Tacit
  assumptions.
• Low expectations of professional commitment -gt
  work allocation -gtperformance appraisal
• Contradictions with respect to inherent
  attributes
• Women rise up faster than men (woman team leader
  0.4 years, program manager is 2.8 years younger
  than her male colleagues )

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Need for a Strategic Perspective

• It is in the strategic interests of organizations
  to recognize and be sensitive to the issues of
  women.
• It is NOT the Societys or Womens Issue
• Women in IT have specific needs/roles
• Top management and not only HR/Senior managers
  responsible for ensuring gender diversity at all
  levels.
• Part of their KPI.

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Organizational Policies and Processes

• Action Points
• Audit organizational practices for gender
  inclusion by third party and carry out women
  based surveys
• Learn from best practice organizations
• Institute an explicit organizational policies for
  supporting women, hiring, rehiring, self
  development
• Gender segregated data at recruitment, promotion,
  exit
• Outreach, Internship Programs focused on women
• Monitor effectiveness

• Findings
• Majority of organizations had no
• formal mechanism to collect the views of women
  while framing any policy in the organization.
• explicit initiatives for strengthening core
  processes related to attracting, retaining and
  Self development.
• Effective availability is lower.

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Organizational Policies and Processes

• Action Points
• Highlight achievement of women
• Necessary to have women on key recruitment,
  appraisal committees.
• Senior women could support mentoring through
  explicit processes
• Institute policies and processes for support
  processes.
• Work out specifics in consultation with women.
• Monitor Effectiveness from Womens perspective

• Findings
• Role models are important. Small biases have
  cascading effect.
• Women more often than not, experience a glass
  ceiling
• Low Effective Availability of support policies
  related to part time work, work from home post
  maternity, paternity, sabbatical across all
  levels worse for junior level

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Organizational Culture

• Action Points
• Help create/support womens networks. Many best
  practice organizations have done so
• Recognize the importance of work-life balance to
  women.
• Understand womens pressure of time commitments.
  Explicitly seek consensus on deliverables (from
  both women and men).

• Findings
• Men find it easier to progress in the
  organization due to informal networks
• Men schedule their work after regular work hours
  to give an impression of staying back and being
  more committed to the job.
• Maybe losing out on face time due to personal
  commitments.
• Women are less flexible than men when it comes to
  work hours as they need to attend to
  responsibilities at the home front.

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Stereotypes

• Findings
• Women across all levels face stereotypes (ability
  to get work done, leadership, behavior,
  Superiors assumption with allowing emotions to
  influence their managerial regard to career
  commitment)
• Intensity of stereotypes highest for junior
  level, reduces as they climb up the corporate
  ladder.
• Lower gender sensitivity of male colleagues at
  lower levels
• A large percentage of womens perceptions
  regarding the above are positive, although these
  vary across levels.

• Action Points
• Assess the gender climate
• Gender sensitization training has to be nuanced
  to fit in to the culture of the organization.
• Across all levels for both genders.
• Should be specific to the types/intensity of
  stereotypes

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Personal Issues

• Action Points
• Well targeted programs for different groups of
  women
• Coaching and counseling are important.
• Design these with sensitivity
• Organizations can support women to overcome their
  personal issues

• Findings
• Working from home isolates women and proves to be
  detrimental to their professional growth.
• Women are unable to rise to the top because of
  personal commitments and/or inability to
  relocate.
• The role of women in senior positions is critical
  to the advancement of women in organizations.
• Personal inhibitions within women may also
  prevent them from reaching leadership positions

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• Thank You

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What Can Organizations Do? (Strategic)

• It is in the strategic interests of organizations
  to recognize and be sensitive to the issues of
  women. Role of NASSCOM
• Women in IT have specific needs/roles
• Audit organizational practices for gender
  sensitivity/inclusion by third party and women
  based surveys
• Audit organizational practices for gender
  sensitivity/inclusion by third party and women
  based surveys
• There are best practice organizations Learn from
  them
• Is there an explicit organizational policy for
  supporting women?
• Gender segregated data at recruitment, promotion,
  exit
• Necessary to have women on key recruitment,
  appraisal committees. Role models are important.
  Small biases have cascading effect.
• Support a more broad based study covering men as
  well.

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What Can Organizations Do? (Operational)

• Strengthen/Increase effective availability of
  core, support processes and facilities.
• Gender sensitization training has to be nuanced
  to fit in to the culture of the organization.
  Across all levels for both genders.
• Gender sensitization training has to be nuanced
  to fit in to the culture of the organization.
  Across all levels for both genders.
• Organizations can help women overcome their
  personal inhibitions.
• Well targeted programs for different groups of
  women
• Coaching and counseling very important. Possibly
  tailored
• Understand womens pressure of time commitments.
  Explicitly seek consensus on deliverables (from
  both women and men).

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Objectives of the Study

• To understand the processes, practices, policies
  and procedures being followed and examine if they
  differentially facilitate capability
  augmentation, growth and career prospects for
  women.
• To solicit participants views on, The myth of
  being stereotyped in IT and ITES".
• To identify factors inhibiting women advancement
  to senior management positions both personal and
  work place related.
• To enumerate facilitators that enable in
  mentoring womens advancement to leadership
  positions so as to benchmark the best practices
  being followed.
• To illustrate the stories of successful women in
  senior management positions with a view to
  solicit advice for new women entrants in this
  field.

Crossing the Digital Barrier Leadership Issues
for Women in the IT BPO Sector
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