Banks are home to high-flying women professionals; other sectors lag

About half of India’s banking assets are under the control of women, economist Ajit Ranade had said last year when India’s biggest bank got its first woman chief.

In a country where gender bias against women is rampant, India’s top banks are headed by women — State Bank of India’s CMD is Arundhati Bhattacharya, ICICI Bank Chanda Kochhar, Axis Bank Shikha Sharma, Bank of India Vijaylakshmi Iyer and Allahabad Bank Shubhalakshmi Panse.

Last November, India also opened its first all-women’s bank Bhartiya Mahila Bank, headed by Usha Ananthasubramanian.

Notwithstanding these exceptions, the number of women in the workplace has remained low. In an effort to increase gender diversity and include more women, banks such as SBI, ICICI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank are making their workplaces more women-friendly.

At ICICI Bank there are 17,000 women employees constituteing around 25 per cent of the bank’s workforce.

Last year, the bank initiated a series of measures for its women employees, including self-defence training, travel monitoring for women working late and quick-reaction mobile vans to handle emergency situations.

The country’s largest bank, State Bank of India, also allowed its women staffers more flexibility by extending a two-year sabbatical from work for purposes such as children’s education and taking care of elderly parents/in-laws.

Kotak Mahindra Bank, in February, introduced an all-women’s Probationary Officers course.

In the last three years, the number of women in Kotak has doubled to 18-20 per cent of the workforce from 9-10 per cent. The bank wants to increase this to 30 per cent.

Mid-career drop-outs Women tend to drop out at mid-career level positions as they prioritise personal commitments and find it difficult to balance organisational demands, career aspirations and family commitments.

Explaining the problems faced by women, K Ramkumar, Executive Director (and HR head) at ICICI Bank, had said last year: “There are very poor childcare and paediatric facilities in India and unlike in the past, grandmothers no longer want to baby-sit their daughter’s or son’s children.”

Gender diversity According to Moorthy Uppaluri, CEO at Randstad India and Sri Lanka: “Despite various efforts to build gender diversity in the workplace, corporate India still has less than 5 per cent of women at the top management and board levels. Also, only 50 per cent of the women who graduate from business schools enter the workforce.”

Further, the presence of the ‘invisible glass ceilings’ at work, lack of proper guidance, prevalence of gender roles and stereotypes, and the lukewarm attitude towards greater responsibilities are among other reasons for lower representation of women in top positions. Shanti Ekambaram, Kotak Bank’s President of Corporate and Investment Banking, said society and organisations should work together to prevent the dropouts on the journey from education to employment, and from marriage to motherhood to the second innings.

“There are highly educated women who are competent and skilled but feel they have lost 5-10 years of their career while raising kids. But their competence and skills are so strong that we can use them,” Ekambaram said.

The bank has launched a unique second innings programme to attract such women.

On gender biases, Ekambaram thinks women at times limit themselves.

She says: “Sometimes, women say they cannot manage too many things but it is all in the mind.” She says they sometimes lack confidence.

Her advice to women colleagues: Be hungry for more.

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