Women employees account for less than a tenth of the workforce in more than half of the top 200 companies by market capitalisation surveyed by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
The Business Responsibility India Survey 2013, conducted by the CII’s Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development (CESD) revealed that 56 per cent of the companies had less than 10 per cent female staff. Such companies mainly operated in sectors such as mining, manufacturing, oil exploration, construction and engineering.
About 20 per cent of the companies had women employees accounting for 10-20 per cent of their staff strength. Another 12 per cent of the companies – mainly in the service sector had female staff ranging between 20 and 40 per cent of their workforce.
Also, half of the companies surveyed had at least one woman on their board of directors. The Companies Act stipulates appointment of at least one woman on the board of a company.
CSR spend
Companies such as TCS, Cairn India, Mahindra & Mahindra, Ambuja Cements, Infosys, GAIL, and ITC among others were part of the survey, which also revealed that many of them were already spending two per cent or more of their profits on the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
However, companies find it difficult to exhaust the CSR budget if areas and methods of spending are restricted.
“India faces many challenges that require innovative ways of solving them, strengthening or creation of new institutions, research, debate and on ground action – all of these are suggested to be qualified as CSR spends,” CII said.
Further partnering with the Government can help address various development challenges such as health, education, rural development and livelihoods.
The survey revealed that environment, employee affairs and governance were the strong areas in Business Responsibility (BR), while concerns existed in human rights, corruption and supply chain. The regulatory mandate by SEBI requiring the top 100 listed companies to submit BR reports based on the national voluntary guidelines was the leading driver for instituting policies.
The survey said 75 per cent of the companies have incorporated BR into the purchasing policy and supplier code of conduct. About 48 per cent of the companies have or are in the process of conducting ecosystem footprint.