Consultation Report: “Gender Equity Means Business” - Women’s Empowerment Principles On November 27, 2013 CARE India hosted the Western Region WEPs Consultation in partnership with UN Women and Global Compact Network India. 31 representatives from 22 companies/ organizations participated in the consultation. This report captures the highlights of the consultation.
Background CARE India is implementing a project supported by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the UK Government to build a stronger commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment within corporate sector in India. This project will build upon the work that CARE India, UN Women and Global Compact Network India (GCNI) have done so far to help strengthen the commitment to and practice of gender equality principles in the private sector through the WEPs Project. The Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), developed collaboratively, between UN Women and UNGCN, provide guidance for businesses on how to empower women in the workplace marketplace and community. The proposed WEPs project is embedded in the Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA), and is aligned to both the objectives of the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) and supports the overarching UN-Women Strategic Plan 2011-2013.
Consultation The Mumbai WEPs consultation was part of a series of consultations that CARE India is organising to promote adoption of WEPs in India. Dr. Muhammad Musa, CEO & Country Director, CARE India began by saying that signing of the WEPs is just a first step towards women’s empowerment. Corporations must play a proactive role to change policies and practices to create an enabling environment. He referred to India’s economic growth rate and said that the corporate sector have a major role to play in contributing towards social growth too. The corporate sector has the ability to drive social growth and promote equitable growth. Besides addressing the gender gap within the workplace (employees) companies also have an important role to play in ensuring equal opportunities across value chains, customer front, supply chain and the larger community. He said that forums like these are a starting point for beginning such conversations. Dr. Musa concluded that CARE or any agency alone cannot bring about this change and we all need to work together.
From the Foreign Commonwealth Office, British High Commission Mr. Giles Cutler and Mr. Pradyumna Bora reaffirmed their office’s commitment to helping and taking forward the cause of doing business without human rights violation as a part of their Business and Human Rights initiatives. Rashmi Singh, Executive Director, Gender Equity and Diversity, CARE India, presented details of the WEPs project and shared some important facts:
India is in the bottom half of the global rankings and holds the 112th position out of 134 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI2010). India is among the four highest-ranking countries for gender inequality in GGGI2010.
Women constitute only 24 per cent of the Indian workforce and only 14 per cent of senior management positions in India, against the global average of 24 per cent. This number falls to a paltry 5 per cent when it comes to top management or board positions.
The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 is a legislative Act in India that seeks to protect women from sexual harassment at their place of work.
The new Companies Act 2013 stipulates at least one woman director’s appointment on the Board of a company.
Rashmi shared that the WEPs initiative has three components targeting to reduce discrimination and inequity towards women in private sector through promoting gender equitable policies and practices: 1. Research: A quantitative and qualitative research of corporate policies and practices around gender equality has been undertaken by the project. This exploratory study, will try to identify pathways that lead businesses in effective implementation of WEPs in India and will support development of evidence-based corporate strategies that accelerate the promotion of WEPs in the Indian context. Through dialogue with companies and case studies, the research will help in identifying best strategies that would lead to effective implementation of WEPs in India. [Companies interested to participate in the research can get in touch with CARE India at weps@careindia.org.] 2. Awareness: Creating awareness on the WEPs is a key element of the project. Regional consultations on the WEPs are one of the ways. Sharing research findings, case studies and best practices among all stakeholders is another way of creating this awareness. 3. Facilitate WEPs adoption: The most important objective of the project is to facilitate signing of the WEPs and implementation of these principles.
To showcase the status of gender diversity in corporate India and to present some best practices at the consultation Ms. Kripa Krishnamoorthy, Vice President & Head, Organizational Development & Talent, Human Resource, Citi Bank made a detailed presentation. Kripa highlighted the huge gap in women’s representation at the decision making level compared to entry and executive level. The gap is higher in the age group of 28 - 36 years where the rate is attrition is very high. Highlights of her presentation are as under: Reasons for low representation on board in Asia is the “anytime, anywhere” performance model which is irreconcilable with the women’s double burden of taking it with family responsibilities. Role of powerful women in workplace will be achieved by creating transparency by implementing gender diversity Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and implementing measures to enhance the work-life balance There is rising trend in the top global 500 companies being represented by women CEOs. In India too we have many women CEOs leading some very successful companies like ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, State Bank of India etc. “Financial sector seems to fare better in gender gap indices,” she said. In Citi Bank 48% of graduates are women, 30% of which are in the technical areas. Citi Bank has taken many initiatives to promote gender equality and Kripa presented some ongoing initiatives: A diversity and inclusion council headed by the CEO has been setup A high level committee on Sexual Harassment at the workplace has been setup Gender inclusive policies like flexi working options, diversity and inclusion sensitization workshops, creating diversity networks, mentoring and coaching programs for pre and post maternity, child care and mother rooms have been started Talent development initiatives for women encouraging them to take more responsibilities within the organization have begun A Gender Diversity report is published every year to measure the progress on this front Wipro is one of the 9 WEPs signatories in India and Tushima Mukherjee, Senior ManagerHuman Resources presented Wipro’s perspective on the WEPs – why Wipro signed and what has been its impact. Wipro signed the WEPs in 2012 which Tushima said came very natural to the company as a reaffirmation of its commitment towards WEPs. She said that Wipro considers itself a socioeconomic entity and thus when the dialogue around gender inclusiveness began Wipro took the lead to create a gender inclusive environment for its employees. Tushima presented the various initiatives and successes at Wipro some of which are: Gender wise reporting on all important monitoring parameters like region, level, training, etc. Employees have transfer options and flexi work options to improve work-life balance Workshops and counselling sessions for both men and women on parenting, time management, health issues etc are regularly undertaken by volunteer employees
and external experts. Almost 95% women employees come back after maternity leave. To bring the perspective of a gender expert Dr. Nandita Shah, Co Director, Akshara Foundation, member UN Women Advisory Board, renowned social activist and gender trainer, talked about the larger issue of gender inclusion within the society and the companies. India has deep rooted gender biases historically based on the patriarchal nature of the society. At the back drop of lowest sex ratio and increasing violence against women, there is a huge challenge of questioning the assumed division of labour and patriarchal mindset of the society even in the women’s mind. Some of the highlights of her discussion were:
A gender neutral policy should come after empowerment. Positive discrimination towards women has had some good results in the Panchayati Raj system and women’s participation in local level governance. Almost 90% of the women workforce is employed by the unorganised sector. It’s important to include the unorganised sector in the WEPs work. Gender sensitization and training has a crucial role in bringing about change in corporate workplaces and even extending to homes of its employees, communities through CSR initiatives, supply chain and marketplace.
A panel discussion moderated by Ms. Sarita Bahl, Director Public Affairs, Pfizer, discussed the need and effectiveness of WEPs from the perspective of diverse industry sectors. The panel comprised of: Ms. Reshma Ghoshal, Vice President Group Communications & Corporate Social Responsibility, India, Deutsche Bank Mr. Sudhir K Sinha, Corporate Head- CSR, Cipla Ltd Ms. Foram Nagori, Manager Corporate Sustainability, The Indian Hotels Company Limited Sarita Bahl started the panel discussion by challenging the panel if it was more important for women to be more assertive of their rights or to have a set of principles, tools, privileges, system to be empowered. The panelists were divided in their opinion about the need of a set of guidelines and principles favouring women by way of compulsory representation or quotas at the decision making or Board level. They showed unanimity on the development of the support systems and enabling factors at the primary level and entry level that can bring in the desired change in mindsets and work culture.
The panel was of the view that there is a need for encouraging work life balance, developing support systems and services like day care facilities, crèches, good transport facilities, flexi work schedules etc. These enabling factors help women to come at par with their male counterparts. The panel also agreed that nurturing at the ground and entry level and mid management level, will automatically reflect in the top management, women will move up in the hierarchy on merit basis, not on the basis of special schemes, quotas or initiatives. Reshma Ghoshal and Foram Nagori shared some of the initiatives their respective companies have undertaken at the community level. Deutsche Bank’s ‘Be! Fund’ supports women entrepreneurship. This initiative helps women overcome the social, economic and environmental issues in their community. The Fund provides funding, skills support and mentoring. Taj Hotels empowers women on livelihood and income generating initiatives which many times get integrated with the hotel supply chain. The panel echoed that it is a common phenomenon across the corporate sector that women are not being represented in the decision making. It requires top management commitment to take up issues like gender inclusion. The panel discussion concluded that the issue of Women Empowerment requires focusing on creation of an enabling environment. However, certain guidelines and frameworks are important to trigger the larger change process. One also needs to look at the underlying causes and plug gaps at every level – school/ colleges or at the recruitment level.
Way Forward Opinions, ideas, perspectives and feedback received from all our representatives are helping us build the WEPs research tool. The tool thus developed will help us detail the set of questions that would enable in depth probing for analysis to examine the emerging trends and practices in India. One critical element that emerged in this regard from the consultation was the need to better market a platform like this to get a better buy in. We’d request all of you to become ambassadors for this important cause and talk to your colleagues/ peers about this initiative.
Next Consultation Next WEPs consultation is scheduled at Bangalore in January 2014; details will be following soon. For registration and more information please contact – akhanam@careindia.org