Workplace Environment is Getting Better for Pune Women

It talks about how workplace was getting better for Pune women, especially in the IT sector.

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Author: Padmaja Shastri

Employing women is no longer an issue and companies across industry segments are realising that it is something which has to be done. While the number of women entering different sectors is on the rise, it is a matter of concern that the percentage of those who stay on to reach the top echelons of the corporate world continues to be minuscule.

And this is despite the fact that top rankers in most educational courses are women. A dipstick survey among Pune companies shows that a large number of women take long breaks or quit midcareer within 10 years of joining. And it is not always due to the usual reasons – family pressures like marriage and children – but also due to lack of job satisfaction and non-conducive work conditions.

Some companies in Pune are making concrete efforts to change this with innovative programmes aimed at removing the hurdles in the path of women achieving their potential. In fact, looking at the various women-oriented programmes being launched in the city this year, 2005 could perhaps be dubbed as the year of women empowerment in Pune.

On March 10, Mahindra British Telecom (MBT) is launching ‘FemMe BeaT’, a professional forum which will offer mentoring programmes to women, apart from support groups to air their concerns and quarterly workshops for professional and personal growth.

“Under the mentoring programme, senior women professionals in the company at the level of corporate or group heads take younger women in the organisation under their wings, guide and help them grow,” said Priya Hajela, head of global marketing of MBT.

According to her, this will help the organisation achieve its target of taking the percentage of women employees to 35 from the present 20 per cent.

The company’s focus for 2005-06 is to bring more women into the organisation and create an environment to promote their professional development.

Zensar Technologies too is looking at increasing the women in its company to 35 per cent and has started an initiative called ‘Women for excellence’ (WE), aimed at driving higher levels of aspiration among its women employees.

It organises regular discussion sessions with experts in various fields, in addition to periodic free-flowing discussions on what is hampering their progress, which are then converted into immediate action points.

Recently, WE committee, consisting of five senior women managers was formed with a common e-mail ID to address women-specific issues and direct authorities to resolve them.

“As women comprise only 22 per cent of our workforce, they do not get to air their concerns within their professional groups and need a separate forum, especially when these are issues they can discuss only with another woman,” said Manjiri Kalghatgi, who is a part of the committee at Zensar.

Incidentally, Microsoft held a programme ‘Women in IT’ for lady student engineers in the city last fortnight to encourage more of them to enter the field of computer science and information technology. The day-long programme held at Persistent Systems exposed them to successful women in the industry like Radha Shelat, chief technology officer of Veritas Software; Chitra Duvedi, head of TCS delivery centre in Pune; Priti Rao head of Infosys, Pune, and Manjiri Ranade, senior technical manager of Persistent Systems to show how to empower oneself and move ahead.

Why so much interest in women? “Women inherently have soft skills like better verbal and communication skills needed to handle conflicts, resolve differences, more flexibility, commitment, sincerity and ability to put up with temporary hardships in difficult times. These qualities are highly in demand in IT companies, which need to handle high attrition rates, tough deadlines and pressures from clients, among other issues,” says Uma Ganesh, president of national HRD Network Pune and CEO of Kalzoom Technologies, an eLearning company. According to her, companies have begun to realise this and are, therefore, recognising it.

However, it is not just IT companies that are striving to nurture their women employees. Engineering major Cummins India Ltd (CIL), along with all Cummins companies across the world, is launching Cummins Women’s Affinity group on Tuesday to coincide with the International Women’s Day.

This global initiative will address the various needs of women in the organisation through its four sub-committees handling training and career development (target — 25 per cent of women to be trained in Six Sigma this year), work-life balance, knowledge sharing and communication (a platform to express concern). It will also address other issues affecting working women like health and fitness, networking and in-house counselling to take care of psychological and emotional needs.

As more and more companies embark upon such initiatives to facilitate women’s climb to the top, the day is not far when women will share equal space with men in boardrooms, if not outnumber them.

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