The Hindu Business Line : Are work-places really women-ready?

Women will play an increasingly significant role in the working world in the years to come. Helping them do this without paying a huge social price is certainly the challenge.

TRYING TO juggle work and their lives.

"No, you cannot watch television today," says Sumathi to her son over the phone from her work desk.

"Give her a Crocin and ask her to rest," Deepa tells her mother who calls to report that her daughter is running temperature.

"So, why don't we start this off in Bangalore on Monday? Let's plan to be there in the morning on Monday and maybe spend a couple of day," suggests Ram to his team members. For Suman, who is part of the team, the matter is not that simple. What about her husband's travel schedule? What about the maid? What about that PTA meeting?

Sumathi, Deepa and Suman are living examples of what women in urban India go through as they juggle their work and their lives.

Amidst all the euphoria about women having found their rightful place in large numbers in the organised sector in India, this article is a reality check. The success stories of a few women at the top cannot be used to claim that everything is fine for women at work. It is not.

If girls and boys enter the educational system in equal number and in fact girls fare better than boys at this stage, why is it that their representation in the organised sector, in general, and the corporate sector, in particular, keeps falling and hits a low a decade later?

I see the journey of building a sustainable career for women consisting of three stages:

Acceptance: Organisations and employers recognising the fact that women represent an important and valuable segment of the talent pool and are capable of being gainfully employed in most mainstream roles and positions. Acceptance also includes the aspect of overcoming the mental blocks about employing women.

Alignment: the process of individual goals, job design and organisational policies and support systems getting aligned to actually deliver sustainable careers.

Actualisation: The stage when women actually realise their full potential in what they do.

We have clearly crossed the acceptance phase. Many of the modern industry sectors in fact prefer to hire women given the skills they bring to the job. Many of the traditional sectors are also open to hiring women into roles which were hitherto occupied only be men.

We now find ourselves in the alignment phase, struggling to pull together the diverse elements to make sustainable careers for women a reality.

The alignment challenges

What are the challenges of alignment?

Making choices

It is obvious that until marriage, the career needs and preferences of women do not seem significantly different from that of men. The challenge of making choices begins to set in after marriage.

The biggest challenge of alignment is to do with women being able to make the trade offs and choices about what is important to them and ensuring that these choices sit well with them, not just intellectually but also emotionally.

The availability of huge opportunities, the upsides of significant income, the peer pressures and often the family compulsions make it difficult for women to make these choices with ease. At the root of this conflict lies the fact that in addition their role as employees, women also play the role of home-makers. This leads to significant emotional conflicts on a day-to-day basis, something that is seldom recognised or spoken about.

Women who have the emotional intelligence to listen to their inner voice and make the right choices are at peace. Others tend to suffer all the way.

Job design

The issue of job design is simple: Jobs which are designed on the premise of face time will just not work for women who attempt to balance work and life. Women with "homemaker" responsibilities tend to value "flexibility" the most and are in fact willing to trade it off for money.

Most jobs in even modern organisations are just not designed for flexibility. This single but significant lack of alignment leads to a large number of women having to exit the world of work.

Given that women constitute a good 30-50 per cent of the workforce in many of our modern organisations, HR will need to work with businesses to redesign many of their jobs to build in flexibility because what is at stake is no small segment of the talent pool — a number set only to increase.

Meaning of success

Organisations, in particular, and the society at large have to join hands to help women redefine the meaning of success in the context of women and their careers. While the meaning of success for men might just be growing levels in organisations, such stereotypes cannot be imposed on women and add to their disappointment. Success should include the intangibles of what Adam Smith called the "use value" of what they do at home and not just the "exchange value" of their work in organisations.

Physical support systems

While this is a no-brainer, it is still a distant dream. From such simple things as ensuring that all offices have a separate rest room for women to ensuring that there are company run crèches, commercially-run reliable day-care centres, 24/7 safe transport for women, quality hostels and so on, to the more esoteric things such as home meal replacements when the stove is unlit, we are far from ready for the women at work in such large numbers. The lack of physical infrastructure by itself causes significant barriers for women to access the opportunities that are otherwise in plenty.

Emotional support systems

There is no running away from the fact that in doing all this, many women undergo significant guilt, stress and as a result suffer ill health.

The Indian woman is however not likely to give up her role as home-maker and the custodian of family tradition all so easily while she is also not likely to give it all up and stay at home. What are the outlets and support systems for coming to grips with all these conflicts and challenges?

I certainly see the need for large numbers of support groups to play the role of providing the space for women to share, understand and be understood. Women will play an increasingly significant role in the world of work in the years to come. Helping them do this without paying a huge social price is certainly the challenge.

(The author is the founder and CEO of totus consulting, a strategic consulting firm that designs and implements HR systems and processes for organisations across diverse industries. He can be reached at ganesh@totusconsulting.com)

More Stories on : Gender | People Wise | Work Life

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Faltering on the FTA

Singur: Bengal must go ahead

No logic in shackling NBFCs

Are work-places really women-ready?

Retailing, continental style

Retail management

Manual typewriter to Microsoft

Oil prices

Financial inclusion