Gender equality, still a startup at technology companies

Infosys, India’s second largest technology services company, quietly reached a significant landmark by the third quarter of this fiscal — it had 116 more women than men at its Mysore training campus.

Across technology services companies, the challenge of creating an equal number of men and women in the workforce is past level one and in not too long a span. From less than 20% of the workforce being women around 2008, most companies today — including Infosys, Wipro, Mindtree, SAP, Accenture and Capgemini — report about half the entry-level recruits being women.

Sangeeta Gupta, senior vice-president, Nasscom, says, “Conscious efforts towards creating diversity, better retention strategies and women-friendly work environments have paid off in creating the gender balance.” Nasscom itself has just appointed its first female president, Debjani Ghosh, who takes over in April. Ghosh, a tech industry veteran, is former managing director of Intel South Asia.


WHAT DRIVES CHANGE
Richard Lobo, executive vice-president, Infosys, says, “A safe environment, right work and equal opportunity helped in increasing the number of women in the workforce.” Lobo, who also heads HR, says parents and society are behind the change as well as there are more women completing college and gaining employment qualifications. Sunita Cherian, senior vice-president, corporate HR, Wipro, stresses that no concessions are made for women. “We are concerned about inclusion but don’t compromise on merit.”

Chitra Byregowda, head, sustainability & diversity, Mindtree, says there are more women taking science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses and hence, entering the workforce. At its Bhubaneshwar Learning Centre — where fresh recruits are trained — 49% are women, up from 16% in 2004. “We have also started hiring from women-only engineering colleges and co-sponsored events like women-only marathons,” she adds. At SAP Labs India, research arm of the business software maker, 34% of a 7,000 workforce comprises women. At Accenture India, one-third of the 1,50,000-strong team are women.

MISSING IN MID-TO-SENIOR ROLES
But the battle for gender equality in the $160-billion technology services business employing 3.9 million is only half won, limiting itself to entry-level. Role models like Nasscom’s Ghosh are few and far between. Consider the numbers. At Infosys, men still comprise 90% of the 300 senior-level workforce. Only three of its 15 executive vice-presidents are women. At Wipro, a mere 10% of the middle management comprises women. At Mindtree, only 6% of vice-presidents and above are women.

Capgemini India, led, till recently, by a woman, has 15% women in senior roles. Former chief executive Aruna Jayanthi moved in 2016 after five years to a global role — as CEO of businesses services at Paris-headquartered Capgemini Group. In January 2017, IBM India appointed Vanitha Narayanan as chairman. Former Facebook India sales head Kirthiga Reddy has moved to California head office. However, these are more exceptions than the norm at CXO level in India.

3M & MID-CAREER CRISIS
Most women drop out midway in their careers for a variety of reasons, their numbers shrinking in higher management. Byregowda points out that 3M — marriage, maternity, motherhood — disrupts careers and is the key reason for less women at senior levels. This is despite ‘lactation rooms,’ crèches and work-from-home options encouraging a return to work. Gayathri Ramamurthy, head, diversity & inclusion, India, Capgemini, says the existing sociocultural set-up in India poses a big challenge to women at workplace post marriage. “There’s an absence of consistent and strong support from immediate family or existing infrastructure. Women’s careers take a back seat in family decisions, especially on geographical mobility.”

Infosys’ Lobo acknowledges challenges and moots a long-term perspective. “A career is a 30 year-plus association and we can’t take a short term view of it due to pauses because of marriage or children.” Infosys allows nine days a month to work from home (open to men as well), besides a focus on encouraging a return to work after maternity break. “Leadership takes time to happen. The focus continues on making a more collegial and safe working environment. We need more role models as well,” says Lobo.

Mindtree does career comeback programmes. But a problem, as Cherian of Wipro points out, is that “when women return after a break, they prefer back-end roles rather than client facing assignments — the latter is where the growth is.” Mohan Sekhar, senior managing director, Accenture Technology Services, concurs. “Very often, when women decide to return to work, they opt to move into general management and programme management roles instead of roles of technologists, due to lack of relevant skills.”

Nasscom’s Gupta says, “Women need to ask, ‘What next for me?’ As men do.” Shraddhanjali Rao, head of human resources, SAP India, sees an “unconscious bias. Diversity, or the lack of it, is a result of people making decisions about employees. Often, these appear to favour certain demographic groups. This is often not intentional – our own unconscious biases cause us to have implicit ideas about what an ideal employee or leader looks like, and our decisions are made accordingly.” Business leaders need information at the point of decision, enabling them to rely less on gut feel about whether people “look right for a job” and more on jobrelevant data, insights and intelligence.

“Companies need tools that allow them to attract, engage and harness the best talent available in an increasingly diverse market,” says Rao. Anuradha Mittal, a technology veteran who worked in companies including IBM, Cisco in India, Singapore and Australia, believes things are changing. However, “the glass ceiling is much lower in India. Besides, IT-BPO companies have 24-hour work clocks, which can discourage women to take up senior roles post marriage. And despite changing times, in India, a woman boss is still not seen as an ideal scenario,” adds Mittal, now an angel investor who also works on government projects.

Overall, multinationals (even in their India operations) tend to have more women in senior roles. For instance, around 15% senior level roles at Capgemini are with women while at SAP Labs India, it is 25%. At Accenture, globally, women accounted for almost one-third of promotions to managing director in 2017. Wipro’s Cherian believes there will be more women leaders in future as their numbers at entry level have grown. She herself was a campus recruit and has been at Wipro for 22 years. Wipro has a WoW (Women of Wipro) Moms programme.

A lot of the so-called problems are also being tackled as companies are global. For instance, deals don’t always happen over drinks and dinner, where women may not join in. “In our kind of business, even clients have women and off-sites are being planned by women as well,” says Lobo. He and others believe things will change in five years or less and there could be half or more of the leadership teams across companies comprising women.