13 March 2014, 03:32 PM IST
Another International Women's Day has just passed us by. On March 8 (or the day prior to it, since this day fell on a Saturday), women employees were provided with the customary feel good treatment – be it with champagne or roses, free makeovers or self defence training, all on the house.
Some of our laws have sought to treat women as equals, for instance: The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976, ensures equal remuneration to men and women workers performing the same work or work of a similar nature. It also prohibits discrimination in recruitment, promotion, training or transfer, except where employment of women is restricted. These provisions are also not applicable in some instances, such as when priority is to be given to schedules castes, schedules tribes, ex-servicemen or retrenched employees.
At the same time other laws have not been progressive, for instance under the provisions of The Factories Act, 1948, women barring in certain sectors and/or in certain States are restricted from working during the late night shift (between 7pm and 6am). Many women organisations have protested against this discrimination and this issue is a matter of heated debate among the younger workforce. On the other hand, with growing violence against women, employers are largely unwilling to lobby for such a change as providing the extra security that could be required for women who are working in the late night shifts would mean an extra cost.
When it comes to breaking the glass ceiling in the board rooms, newer legislations such as The Companies Act, 2013, have sought to create quotas for women directors - which is a standard norm in EU countries, but has not yet been introduced in the U.S.A. Once the rules are finalised, listed companies will have a year to gear up and ensure that at least one woman is appointed as a director. Large private companies have been given a longer time period to meet this new requirement.
When The Times Insight Group had last done an analysis of the number of women directors in 2012, we found that PSUs were more inclined to have women directors. Of the BSE-30 companies, seventeen of them had at least one women director on board. Of course, going forward, listed companies will have little or no choice in having a gender diverse board of directors. Soon, even large private companies will have to follow suit. The issue before many is: Where will we find suitable women candidates to join our boards?
While many groups aimed at mentoring women, say that all they need is to take a closer look at the talent which exists; perhaps this is a genuine concern. No one can dispute that only experienced women with the right qualifications should be inducted on the boards, this means – picking from the senior hierarchy of working women.
Grant Thornton's International Business Report (IBR) 2014 – Women in business: From classroom to boardroom shows that the proportion of senior roles filled by women across the globe in 2014 was only 24% (In India it is 14%). This is exactly the same proportion as in 2013, 2009 and 2007, and only 5% higher than the 19% recorded ten years ago in 2004.
IBR 2014, shows that women representation in the senior management of India Inc stands at 14%, a drop from the IBR 2013 results of 19%.
Thus, the reason for lack of a talent pool from which women directors can be chosen perhaps stems from the lack of adequate women at senior levels. In turn, the root cause of this stems from the bias when it comes to hiring women or the lack of mentorship available to them. Or lack of a societal norm where household responsibilities are shared.
Grant Thornton's suggestions for India Inc based on the findings of their survey, were: (i) Improve mentoring: A little more than one in four Indian companies (28%) ran a specific program to promote women's leadership. However, despite increasing impetus being given to improve female participation in the workforce and address the current lack of women at the top rung, as many as 50% of the Indian business did not run a specific programme to support/mentor women, nor had plans to launch one in the near future; (ii) Relieve childcare burden: Just 20% of Indian businesses reserved job roles of women on maternity leave for more than a year, and 16% provided childcare vouchers, a salary increase (which might make returning to work more financially viable) and on-site childcare facilities. (iii) Hire more female graduates: It is against this parameter that India Inc fared very badly as compared with global figures. In an average year only 14% of the graduate midmarket Indian businesses hires were women. The corresponding global figure of 21% calls for a need for India Inc to unpack the current male bias around hiring and promotion that is the key to increasing diversity.
There are bound to be counter views that there is no need for India Inc to adopt the above measures, be it by way of providing mentorship or even childcare facilities at the workplace. The truth is, diversity is important – especially at senior management levels. As different perspectives come on to the table, it helps foster better business strategies, more innovation and better risk management.
IBR 2014 states: The results show that there exists an imminent need for Indian corporates to make the women workforce an integral component of the succession planning process, and create an environment in which women can contribute and succeed. Despite creating a conducive environment for the women workforce, a large number of Asian corporates are promoting very few women to top positions. The biggest burden for working women in Asia to climb up the corporate hierarchy is managing a job with the additional burden of family commitments. The challenge for women becomes more pronounced in the Indian culture which requires women to take up the sole responsibility for family and household duties.
According to the global think tank – The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), over the last 50 years, women decreased their hours of unpaid work as they increased the hours of paid work. Men have been doing more housework and child care, but they didn't take up the slack so gender inequalities in the use of time are still large in all countries. Apart from Asian countries, where typically women are expected to take care of household duties, the same norm exists in a few other countries as well. According to OECD's report, 'Balancing paid work, unpaid work and leisure', released on March 7, Turkish women spend the most time doing unpaid work, such as housework, child care, caring for other household members et all, at 377 minutes a day, followed by Mexican women at 373. This compares to their menfolk: Mexican men who spend an average of 113 minutes on unpaid work and Korean men who spend only 45 minutes, the least of all. When it comes to India (the India figures available to the OECD relate to 1999) show a wide gap, men in India spent only 52 minutes a day (less than an hour) helping around the house, whereas women had to bear a huge burden spending 352 minutes a day (or close to six hours a day), caring for children, other household members and in household work. Things could have marginally changed since 1999 to which this data relates, but one wonders to what extent.
What women in India really need to enable them to progress in the work sphere is not just a caring work environment but also a cultural change. Is the society willing to take up this challenge? Perhaps we need to revisit the scenario, maybe five years down the line.
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