The Hindu Business Line : Their work is their worth

Women have established their worth at the workplace, and their competence and dependability ensure employment, even after taking breaks in their career.

She doesn't have time for late-night networking binges. Nor does she feel free enough to share a naughty joke with her boss. But she has a strategy — to work her way to her worth.

Women in the corporate world have the same pressures as women working in other walks of life.

At work the compulsions are acute, the deadlines are all yesterday and the ability to perform is judged on gender-neutral terms. At home it is a different story — she's the woman, the mother, the daughter-in-law — with all the roles and role models attached to her gender strings. In both cases, she works her way to negotiate her worth.

No wonder then that CEOs and HR heads alike bat for women employees, even though attrition rates are much higher among them and their employment often comes with several ifs and buts and sabbaticals. Take Rekha Kapur, for instance. An MBA from a premier institution, she has been heading a corporate sales team for five years, but suddenly has to "take a break" from work because her ailing mother-in-law needs full-time caring. Will a man be required to do it or would an office even consider a request such as this one, if he made it? In all likelihood, no man will dream of doing it. If an exceptional sensitive man does, his office would flatly refuse to entertain such a request. But in Rekha's case, not only was she given permission to take six months off, she was also promised the same post on return.

Why? Obviously because she has proved her worth at the workplace. "It was the work she had put in all these years that made us offer the job back to her; we treated it as a sabbatical. In India especially, women have societal compulsions that they find difficult to shelve, hence they take a break more often than their male counterpart. But if the woman has proved herself, as women often do, then employers are open to taking them back," says Rekha's immediate boss, who spoke to the HR head to allow the "break".

Rekha is not the exception to the rule, but she definitely is luckier than many others who have not been as successful in conveying their worth. N. Rajshree had to drop out from an IT company due to family pressure after marriage, even as she was being slated for the top post in her department. She hoped that, like several other women in the industry, she too would be able to work from home or would be offered a combination of flexi hours and part-time employment. But her company didn't make any such gesture.

"Maybe she had not been able to convey her wish to continue a link with the organisation or else the company's HR people were not human enough. Sometimes, when you're dealing with cut-throat competition in the outside world, the concerns or problems of your employees take a second place," says an HR analyst. However, he feels that women are given the pink slip less often than men.

"They are honest, unassuming and hard working," he says, but adds that there is the occasional woman who is as aggressive and competitive as the men. And, in some cases, ruthless enough to use tactics that are more foul than fair to achieve her aims.

However, Rajshree may not be aware of a slot that would be open for her — a slot that recognises women's worth even though they have to opt out to perform `gender roles'. Business Process Outsourcing companies especially are in search for the competent, qualified woman dropout who will happily take on a part-time job now that "the kids are more independent and the house is established".

Why are the BPOs banking on this section to address attrition? Precisely because women as a group have been able to establish that they are both competent and dependable, even though they have had to leave a job some point in life.

Women, in fact, have been able to demonstrate that given the right job, they can perform — though the glass ceiling does prove a psychological hindrance as do gender roles. Though Biocon's Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Piramal's Swati Piramal, and a host of others have proved that women's worth should be measured through their work and that there is no ceiling on what they can achieve. The change is sure, but slow — be it in the world of politics or business.

Picture by Shaju John

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