The Hindu Business Line : ‘A diverse employee base makes good business sense’

Large global organisations with a heterogeneous customer base recognise that an inclusive work environment has become a management imperative. Diversity is no longer a ‘nice’ thing to have, but an essential part of a company’s hiring policy. “Companies that have not implemented it so far, will now be forced to put this on the agenda because of the sheer shortage of talent,” says Rekha Menon, Executive Vice-President, India Geographic Services and Human Capital and Diversity, Accenture India.

The sheer nature of the demand for talent will force companies down this path, she says. Accenture is now racing towards achieving the 35,000-employee mark by August-end, making it the largest Accenture centre in the world.

In this interview with The New Manager, Ms Menon talks of how Accenture has initiated its diversity policy and what could go wrong if it were not implemented with sensitivity.

When companies talk of diversity in India, why does it almost always focus on having ‘more women’? What about other diversity issues that companies could face?

Inclusion and diversity is certainly more than having x or y groups of people. It should include all types of people, only because it makes good business sense to do that. Diversity also means that no single group of people should feel excluded.

Which group you are focusing on, depends on which stage of evolution you are in. For instance, when Accenture looked at diversity issues in South Africa, it meant bringing blacks into business. In the UK, the issue is more of religious diversity. In India, it’s more about gender inclusion because the largest segment we could focus attention on now is women. Also, women are terribly under-represented in the IT industry in the country.

And the best way of doing this would be…

We believe that the leadership has to behind it. We can’t have some HR rep doing it. We have to have support right at the top and there has to be a commitment. Also, the leadership has to make sure that it provides a vibrant culture to foster these initiatives.

How do you bring in the culture?

We announced our intentions and put leadership behind it, right at the start. We provided a vibrant culture, not only to bring women in, but also made sure that they stayed and grew. We have done focussed hiring of women at all levels, but remember we are dependent on the external pipeline. Only about 11 per cent of engineering graduates in the country are women, therefore, we are limited by the pool.

What are the dangers of a badly framed diversity initiative?

The danger is when you start hiring and retaining at the cost of other segments of the workforce. Companies should make sure that there is no quota mindset, nor should there be a dropping of standards in any way. We have to retain meritocracy and should not discriminate against any other segment.

One has to be completely transparent. If you start a quota system, even an implicit one, you start bucketing people and then there’s trouble.

How have you done this?

Build in enablers to meet the special needs of that particular segment. We do not lower the bar just to meet the internally set quota. But facilities to make their working life easier have to be created.

For instance, if you are hiring a physically challenged person, you should change the work hours for him/her, arrange for a suitable pick and drop, etc.

How do you educate other segments in the organisation about the need for diversity initiatives? In other words, how important is it to sensitise them?

That’s the start. You cannot mandate such initiatives. It wouldn’t be a success without sensitising the rest of the population on why it is important. They have to see the benefits of the whole exercise. It has to be a comprehensive thought-through programme. This also requires training of our people, especially the supervisors. Before introducing any policy, we need to put it in context.

Can you talk about your diversity initiatives in India?

Accenture has been in India for the last three years, but we were lucky because we inherited the culture. Even as we began operations, we started building the policies. We have a very focused recruiting campaign to hire women. We also have referral programmes in place. We also encourage women networking within the company, between locations and countries. We also have talks by successful women in the company.

But isn’t diversity not just about numbers, but levels at which these women have reached within the company?

Absolutely. But we do not have enough of history to support this. We’re just three years old in India. We’re tracking different segments and identifying specific businesses where women are doing well. For instance, the enterprise segment is doing well, not because I look after it, but because there are many women available in marketing, HR and finance.

What about attrition among women? Is it true that women quit only when they have children?

Wrong. There are women who leave for better salary, better professional growth. But there is a large percentage of women who leave when they have children.

When we realised that, we focussed on creating an environment that would enable them to continue working even under such circumstances, like providing child care, extended maternity leave and flexi hours. But remember, not all jobs allow for such flexibility.

Your comment on women leadership in the IT industry in India?

There is a great lacuna here. There are no role models in the Indian IT industry to share success stories and provide mentoring. That’s why we have a programme where women from other locations mentor Indian women in similar businesses. The Western world is far ahead of us only because women in white collar jobs have been there longer and there’s a larger pool of available talent.

The culturisation and the self-selection here is restrictive and we are fighting a tide.

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