The Hindu Business Line : Job or career?

Women need to decide whether they want a job or a career. "You get a job to earn money and gain economic independence. You take up a career to pursue personal and professional goals."

It's no secret that women are storming traditional male bastions in India. Even those occupations, which had a macho touch to it — defence services, merchant navy, bus and train driving, for example, are now fair game for women. Yet the numbers, who break the mould and take up these professions or some other calling in the corporate/government circles, and climb the ladder, still remain few when compared to the western world.

The CEO of a software company has an interesting explanation for this. He has had to answer American business visitors on why there were few women working in his office. "The demographic and social situation here is very different from what prevails there. About 40 per cent of women of marriageable age in the US choose to remain single — either because they don't want to get married or have gone through a divorce. There is, therefore, an economic reason for more women to go to work in that society. In contrast, 80 per cent of the women of that age group are comfortably settled in marriages in India. As an extension of that you find fewer women in workplaces and consequently fewer women managers," he says.

That may be changing, although slowly. "We are seeing an increasing number of women, across industries, but more specifically in the new economy space such as IT, telecom, business process outsourcing, banking, finance and insurance. Multinational companies are taking the initiative to provide equal opportunities for women — sometimes to the extent that they are willing to pay a premium in order to get a woman manager," says E. Balaji, General Manager, Staffing Solutions, Ma Foi Ltd, Chennai.

So, how are the women who are already on the job faring? Are they as good or better than men, and more loyal to the organisation? What do they bring to the table? How do their male and female counterparts and sub-ordinates and bosses rate them? Do they bring to the workplace their gender sensitivities, likes and dislikes, sometimes even a sense of insecurity as they are still a minority in a man's world? And what are their shortcomings? Canvas spoke to a couple of corporate executives in the human resources space to get a feel of the subject.

Sarada Jagan

No one is complaining. When asked to evaluate women managers, almost all the HR executives said there was seldom any differentiation on the basis of gender. Sarada Jagan, President — HR (Corporate), Chemplast Sanmar Ltd, says, "There is no gender influence while evaluating managers. Women are as good as men."

G. Ramu, Deputy General Manager, HR, HCL Technologies, agrees, "Women managers are no different from others — whether it is in performance on the job, quality of work or handling people."

Sindhuja Shankar

On what women managers bring to their jobs, Sindhuja Shankar, who heads HR at Verizon India, a telecom multinational, says, "Women have an edge when it comes to attention to detail, emotional tolerance and a willingness to accept change."

Apart from this, she adds, "Indian women have the ability to adapt — because of childhood conditioning, culture and the environment that they grow up in; typical accepted behaviour patterns such as listening to elders, taking care of them and adapting to new environment when they get married. Therefore, I guess, the acceptance of change flows from home to office."

Adds Sarada, "We have an intuitive knack while dealing with people. I think men are also willing to open up, because we listen better and show more empathy."

Sindhuja feels that "women have the god-given attribute of charm and appeal that they could successfully utilise as an asset; as a valuable add-on to their professional demeanour. To me, this attribute gives women an edge; without belittling their competence, ability and professionalism."

Many executives agree that women score higher in their ability to do multi-tasking and work under pressure. An HR executive who shepherded a number of exit interviews during the software bust a year ago, said that women bounced back faster after the setback, while the men took their retrenchment very personally and took longer to recover.

So how do they fare as team members?

"They make for more reliable team members. You can give them a job and forget about it," says Sindhuja.

Yet few women occupy top jobs. The dropout rates at middle-management level is high, confirms Ramu. He says that in a particular division, in his company, while women candidates account for around 30 per cent of the strength at the entry level, there are only two women out of 40 at the middle-management level. The CEO of a software company agrees there is a marked reluctance on the part of women to try and reach top positions. On the other hand, they prefer to remain, for instance, analysts/programmers or project managers, and don't want to go beyond, for fear that it would lead to intrusion into family time. "Once you reach the level of a Vice-President, more responsibilities are thrust on you and you can't always say `No'. Sometimes, it means working on weekends, and living out of suitcases for days on end. Often it also means picking up calls at home after 11 p.m. This is not something that many women are willing to do," he points out.

Sarada says that women need to get out of the confusion on whether they want a job or a career. She says, "You get a job to earn money, keep yourself occupied and gain economic independence. You take up a career to pursue personal and professional goals, look for self- development and continuously evaluate yourself. A woman will also have to plan her work/ personal life and balance the two at every point in time. We have this tendency to play superwoman — trying to excel in all roles — daughter, wife, mother, employee, boss, and the like. One needs to have continuous and open dialogue with one's family to sort out issues, since a career will entail sacrifices and compromises."

Now for the other side of the coin: Do women managers have any weaknesses or shortcomings? The answer is `Yes', and we got an interesting range on this one — from both male and female respondents. Most men, as expected, preferred to remain anonymous. Says a woman manager in an insurance company, "Women cannot talk back to their bosses. Men are relatively bolder. Women take it out on their subordinates."

A male HR executive in a software company says, "As far as general awareness of business and global developments is concerned, I would give them a thumbs down. They don't read as much as they should. That may partly be because they don't have much time on their hands at home."

Another HR executive added the caveat that having women managers for large women teams can sometimes fail. "Often, in such cases, there are petty fights and turf wars and some jealousies come to the fore."

Pose this impression to women managers and there are mixed reactions. Some agree that they have seen similar problems, while others disagree strongly.

Another irritant, mainly for male bosses, when it comes to women managers is their fetish for ethics. Echoing this, a mid-level male HR manager says, "Women managers can be inflexible in certain things. For instance, their attachment to values — sometimes it can be an irritant and comes in the way of smooth functioning. For instance, we have to pay Rs 2,000 as bribe to an ESI inspector on his annual inspection. We know it is a cost we need to incur — but they keep asking questions."

He goes on to add that women managers sometimes tend to be excessively protective of women employees. "Certain problems are kept hidden from top management until they snowball and reach the crisis point. Women managers prefer to see it as a women's issue and do not normally share confidences on problem employees with others in senior management," he says.

Says Sarada, "Women managers tend to ignore the need for self-development. They fall short in networking, unlike men who attend meetings and professional gatherings. They must read more and upgrade their professional competencies continuously. Over a period of time, if they don't do this, they miss out on upward mobility."

However, she disagrees with the contention that women managers are inflexible. "They may be assertive in order to get a point across. Everybody is conscious of what you are doing. So the tone and pitch that they use may make it appear that they are emotional or aggressive. Women are by nature, and because of their upbringing and social norms, more flexible and have a higher emotional quotient."

Pictures by Bijoy Ghosh

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