90% of the reasons for the sabbatical are found to be a development in personal life like childcare, maternity and re-location.
BENGALURU: Six in 10 women who are self-employed or are not working today have blamed organisational culture at their previous workplace as the primary reason for them to drop out, finds a survey.
The ‘Brewing Soul Storm Survey’ by X-Leap - a professional services firm - finds that 47% of women have taken a sabbatical globally, of which about 70% have dropped out of employment and have started something of their own or are looking for a job. The remaining 30% are in employment.
Organisations, culture and systems along with family support are the key reasons for these massive dropouts, especially at the mid-management level, says the report.
90% of the reasons for the sabbatical are found to be a development in personal life like childcare, maternity and re-location. The survey also highlighted structural barriers in an organisation like career track transparency), challenges to enablement at work - lack of role models), low effectiveness of learning and development and employee assistance programmes.
The survey highlighted micro cultural barriers at work - patriarchal team cultures and low inclusion teams.
Gender inequity in compensation seems to be playing out in patriarchal cultures almost 25% more than in non-patriarchal cultures.
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It was found that a patriarchal culture was a barrier at work due to which most women do not feel that the organisation is transparent about the career track. On further analysis, career track and role model challenges have come up as structural issues. Gender inequity in compensation seems to be playing out in patriarchal cultures almost 25% more than in non-patriarchal cultures.
The survey also reveals that an encouraging family and spouse is found to be a big support system for the women and is a large enabler rather than being a stopper. Having role models while growing up are also great enablers for women.
“Our survey indicated that 34% women are not positive about their career aspirations being met at the current workplace and may be on the attrition watchlist. Organisations need to stem the rot right away as there is a large proportion of disengaged women employees. It is imperative that band-aid fixes are not applied but deep-rooted mindsets and beliefs are addressed. Organisations need to custom build their own solutions which suit their unique heritage, culture and the persona mix,” Saikat Ghosh, managing partner, X-Leap, told ET.
The report is based on insights from 300 responses from 15 countries - of which 140 were women in employment and 131 were self-employed. Out of all the respondents, 68% respondents are from India and about 74% held Masters degrees.
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X-Leap was founded by two McKinsey alumni, Saikat Ghosh and Krishna Venkitaraman, and operates with a design-led approach to innovation and problem solving, making it accessible for companies of different sizes and in different sectors.
The International Labour Organisation estimates that two-thirds of the jobs lost globally due to Covid-19 belonged to women.
According to ET Evoke report, various surveys find that achieving gender parity at work can add $28 trillion or 26% to global GDP by 2025. India alone could add $770 billion or 18% to its GDP by 2025 if it enabled half of its productive workforce — women.
Here's how companies can achieve gender parity.
Research: Harvard Business Review, The Washington Post, Forbes
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