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Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the progress towards gender parity in the workplace has taken a dramatic step backwards and impacted representation of women at the work, said panellists at a webinar.
The challenges continue to remain for women in the workplace, and companies need to have a balanced gender parity working atmosphere, they felt.
The recent Global Gender Gap 2021 released by the World Economic Forum seems like the strongest call to take action to date to the change agents - large global companies and individuals with influence, said Bianca Ghose, Chief Storyteller and Head of CEO Communications, Wipro, at a webinar on Women in Tech: India - Best Practices to Create A Great Workplace for Women.
It means that women are going to keep working and keep waiting for another 135 years for economic opportunities; same education opportunities; same health and survival opportunities that men have today, she added. The TechPACT series, sponsored by SRM Tech, was moderated by Michael Smith, Founder & Chair, The TechPACT while BusinessLine was the media partner.
‘Accelerated change’
Agreeing with Ghose, Srividya Visweswarababu, MD, Deloitte Digital, said that women have been ‘disproportionately’ affected. They have left the workforce or are thinking about leaving. However, the pandemic has accelerated change in many ways, she added. The pandemic has opened up a significant opportunity and completely demolishing the male centric performance benchmarks. For years, every industry has inherited very stereotypical definitions of what jobs women must do, said Arun Kumar, MD & Country Head, Telstra.
Over the years, the stereotypes were advantageous to men in many roles. However, during the pandemic those male centric benchmarks don’t hold any more, he said.
Annie Mathew, CIO, Mother Dairy, said it is a matter of concern that the pandemic has taken a toll on women’s empowerment; their ability to work and contribute. It is important that men share their responsibilities, and they need to free up space to grow.
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