Building gender balanced work culture.

Good work culture is one where employees are continuously encouraged to work as a team, have each other’s back, and bring the best outcomes in every project. Work Culture of a company is one of the important parameters of corporate reputation.

The organizations play a huge role not only in delivering value to the shareholders but also in constructing the society they operate in. Let’s view it from the gender gap angle. 

Kotak Committee’s recommendation was to have at least one-woman independent director on the boards of the top 500 companies based on market capitalisation by April 01, 2019 and in the top 1000 listed entities, by April 1, 2020. But this did not alter the picture much. We still are not able to see many women leaders in core management teams, in analytical teams or in labour force.

The education gap between men and women has narrowed during last 10-12 years. It is often seen that the ratio of male & female employee is balanced, when they are hired at entry level/campus selection.

But as these resources start climbing up the management hierarchy, the balance is lost and we can see more men taking up the senior positions as compared to their female counterparts.

Following are 5 reasons why we see less women leaders around us:

1. Social Structure: Although equally talented and resourceful, women are still expected to give priority to their family responsibilities than career. It is a classic puzzle -during job interviews, why only female candidates are asked how would they manage their job and family!

• Attitude & Work Culture: Sadly, companies have a narrow mindset towards female employees. Work culture in such companies is not encouraging nor supportive towards gender equality.  Occasionally they have inferior pay structure for women employees.

• Lack of ambition and confidence in women: Sometimes though management of an organisation wants to offer equal opportunities to women, there are no takers. Women employees lack ambition and confidence to move further in their careers. A study done by Harvard University says that women consistently rated their performance on a test lower than did men — even though men and women had the same average score on the test, and even when women knew how they had done on the test.

While applying for a job- men and women respond in different ways. For a job opening, a man will apply confidently without a shred of doubt even though he doesn’t fulfil 5 out of 8 criteria points. But a woman will pull herself back and not apply for a job even when she fits in 7 out of 8 criteria points.

• Women shy away from taking credit for their achievements in their career: I have seen and heard many women leaders expressing their gratitude towards their families and mentors while receiving an award but if the receiver of that same award is a man, he won’t stop talking how hard he has worked for it.

• Less or No Involvement of men in family duties: Many companies, employees and their families haven’t realised the real meaning of “Paternity Leave”. Men taking care of the household duties or child care has not been normalised yet. If a man cooks at home or attends a PTM in his ward’s school, he is idolised. But women balancing career and family is often taken for granted.

Fortunately, many forward-thinking organisations and visionaries have been taking steps towards a gender balanced society.  In 2019, I was invited for a panel discussion by a Bangalore based company. This company’s vision is to bring back women to work after a break (maternity/family reasons). The panel consisted of HR heads of many eminent companies from IT, Pharma, BFSI sectors. The members of panel discussed about various measures taken to welcome women employees back to work.

        But Gender Gap is not only about women being ignored or not been given good opportunities. Gender gap is also about how men are pressurised to take up jobs, earn well and feed their families. Career choice for a man is often made looking at higher salaries, promotions and perks rather than what he likes to do… do you remember Farhan from the movie 3 Idiots?

       Few measures an company can take for a gender balanced work culture are:

1. Creating an equal opportunity policy helps ensure that women and men have access to the same positions, opportunities for advancement, and other job perks.
2. Conducting training workshops to inform employees about gender equality at work.
3. As part of educating your employees about discrimination, address unconscious bias and how it can play a role in the ways in which colleagues talk to one another, communicate in general, and make decisions. Use examples—for instance, asking a woman if she has children or intends to in the future does not affect her skills and ability to do her job any more than it affects a male candidate’s.

To sum up, countries with more gender equality have better economic growth and progress.