Flexi staffing yet to take off in India

CHENNAI: Ten years back, if you had predicted that flexi staffing would become a common phenomenon in India , it would not have been a far fetched expectation. After all, big trends such as globalisation, technology and progressive HR policies were evident even then. However, now, in 2007, the concept of flexi-staffing still appears to be having teething trouble.

Flexi staffers — typically women who gave up their career a while back and are willing to enter job market as long as the working hours are flexible — say their new job profiles don’t reflect their skills and specialisation, their salaries lower, and the projects they are assigned, very basic, according to a survey by AVTAR Career Creators, Chennai-based multi service recruitment consulting firm.

Companies, on the other hand, find it difficult to place the same level of trust on flexi staffers, as they could for the regular employees. Getting a better understanding of flexi staffers, and designing a separate policy for them would be steps in right direction.

Ms Saundarya Rajesh, CEO of AVTAR Career Creators said, “We conducted a detailed survey among the registered members of I-Win, that would give potential employers a clear picture about flexi-workers and their aspirations.” I-Win stands for AVTAR Interim Women Managers’ Interface Network, a service that focused on creating flexible career opportunities for qualified women professionals.

The survey was conducted among 1,145 respondents across nine metros in India. It threw up some interesting responses and firmly set gender equations that are hard to quash even in a career-oriented ambitious woman. Sample this. The respondents primarily belonged to an age group (31-40 years), who had taken a break from a high-powered career at a managerial level for 8-10 years before resigning themselves and their career to enter matrimony.

This group, which opted for a flexi career, was firmly entrenched in the gender stereotype that underlined the specific roles to be essayed by a man and woman in a marriage. Thus, flexi working seemed a great option which provides for the women professional to retain her ‘feminity’ while retaining a foot-hold in the professional arena.

This goes to prove that a woman who places her career before her home and children still faces stigma in society. In fact, majority of the professionals opting to work flexi had quit promising careers either due to the guilt of neglecting her child or because relocation after marriage had stemmed their career growth.

However, an interesting pattern was that women who opted to quit their career had a salary package of Rs. 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh per annum. Women who earn Rs 20 lakh pa were found to rarely forego their career. Majority of them preferred to work in the banking and services sector.

Another interesting insight that the survey provided was that though these professionals were weaned away from their careers because of family commitments, it was ultimately family support that drew them to flexi-working, preferably with their previous employer. “Women claimed inter-personal interaction as a strong attraction for getting back to the work front, apart from the financial stamina it provides.

Also, these professionals belong to nuclear families that are used to a double income and don’t want to let go of it in a hurry. So, flexi options provide the much coveted work-home balance”, said Ms Rajesh. She added that despite encouraging response from companies like Unilever and Scope, flexi professionals still faced integration problems in their work environment.

In this context, Ms Rajesh said there was a need for a structured policy in companies to cater to the flexi stream just like recruits from campuses or other lateral streams. “Barclays and Shell have structured policies for flexi careers. This will be important to incorporate in Indian firms where the growth will necessitate a demand for manpower”, she said.