From flexible hours to child care, India Inc innovates to hire more women

A. Chitra decided to return to work after a five-year break to take care of two toddlers. She had quit at the peak of her career but after such a long break, she was understandably apprehensive. Would there be any job roles matching her qualifications and would employers be willing to hire someone needing significant training and reskilling?

After nearly six months of futile search, she chanced upon Cognizant’s “Returnship Program”. Chitra now works as manager (Projects) and says Cognizant’s programme not only helped her get back to work but also gave her the training and flexibility to manage responsibilities at home.

Nita Nambiar, AVP-HR and India Diversity & Inclusion lead, says, “Cognizant’s is a 12-week paid programme for talented technology professionals with a minimum of five years of professional experience, who have taken at least a two-year career break.” Many of them are, unsurprisingly, women. Those accepted into the returnship programme get to update their skills in a supportive work environment, get involved with real-time projects and work with cutting-edge tools and technology. “At the conclusion of the programme, participants are considered for a position with Cognizant,” says Nambiar. 

In the logistics industry, which does not have a large proportion of women employees, Mumbai-headquartered Allcargo Logistics launched a “Restart” programme earlier this month. “Women who want to get back to work after a career break are given a chance for a job interview without prejudice,” says Indrani Chatterjee, group chief people officer. “We also offer project-based assignments for those women who are not ready for a 9-to-5 work day.”

Getting women back to paid jobs after a long break is part of a growing awareness across India Inc about the need to increase the proportion of women in the workforce.

Bengaluru-based software products and services company Impelsys has decided to raise the percentage of its women employees to 40 per cent in calendar 2022 from about 31 per cent now, by consciously hiring women across geographies. Kavitha Nandagopal, associate vice-president (HR), says as part of this drive, Impelsys is also in the process of hiring spouses of employees. The company already has a policy of selecting women candidates from a pool of similarly qualified candidates across jobs. 

At consumer durables company Panasonic India, Chief HRO Adarsh Mishra says the number of women employees has jumped by 90 per cent since 2014 and the company continues to offer the flexi work option to them. Ditto for Impelsys.

Not just flexibility at work, some employers are also offering elder care and child care solutions at home to free up women for paid work.

“The services in demand are focused on elders (nurses/attendants) and kids (stress management, 24x7 access to GPs or nutritionists). Some companies have sponsored complete health check-ups; others have subscribed to our holistic health and fitness programme, Seva Prime,” says Atul Gandhi, founder CEO of Seva At Home, a Nashua, New Hampshire-headquartered health services concierge for leading corporations.

The missing workforce

Why are employers rushing in to hire women and also tweak policies to allow women flexibility?  

In India, the proportion of women in paid jobs has always been low, but the pandemic has worsened the situation. According to CMIE data, in December 2021, nearly eight million unemployed women were actively looking for work and nine million were willing to work although they were not actively looking for work.

“It is worth investigating why such a large number of women who tell interviewers that they are willing to work are not actively applying for work or making other efforts in finding work. Is it the lack of availability of jobs or is it the lack of social support for women to join the labour force?” asks CMIE Managing Director and CEO Mahesh Vyas in a blog.

In 2021, the national average monthly employment for women declined by 6.4 per cent compared to the pre-pandemic year 2019. There has also been a sharp decline in average monthly employment (urban female) as 22.1 per cent fewer women were employed in urban India in 2021 versus 2019. 

Some companies are trying to correct the situation.

Amazon India, for instance, has multiple programmes offering flexibility and a chance for women to transition to leadership roles. Women lead many key businesses and strategic teams, including Amazon Fresh, AWS Public Sector, regional fulfilment network and delivery experience strategy teams. Also, Amazon’s childcare policy enables access to a network of childcare providers at discounted rates. For mothers at work, there are “Mothers’ Rooms” at Amazon India offices with plug points for electrical breast pump usage and a refrigerator to store bottled breast milk.

Shilpa Khanna, director, Human Capital Solutions, Aon, says, “In India, it is estimated that housework for women increased by almost 30-40 per cent during the pandemic. This led to a larger number of women either dropping out or reducing their involvement in the workplace. This trend was significantly higher for women with children under 10 years of age.”

Khanna points to “return-to-work” programmes for women by the Tata Group, Amazon, Fidelity, Microsoft and Godrej; most also include a skilling/reskilling programme. 

Swati Rustagi, director DE&I, International Markets, WW Consumer at Amazon India, says that over the last few years, the company has launched initiatives including virtual working options, flexible work opportunities, exemption from work-related travel, advocacy for women to work in night shifts and enabling them to do so, and building returnship programmes to allow them to choose a suitable arrangement.

Employers are also getting more sensitive to women’s caregiving needs. Bharti Airtel has announced up to 24 weeks of post-maternity flexible working besides a monthly allowance of Rs 7,000 for the new born till 18 months of age.  

A prominent reason for companies being increasingly keen to hire women on breaks is that such a talent pool is available for immediate joining, says Saundarya Rajesh, founder president at Avtar Group, a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) consultancy.

“Overall, workplaces need to change with a deeper sense of inclusion to remove the evident and non-evident inequities. As the economy opens up, this is a good time for the leaders at the boardrooms to revisit the employee value proposition in a way that ushers in gender pay parity, and constitute policies and models for greater participation of women in senior leadership roles,” she says.

Even if Indian companies are being pushed to hire an increasing number of women to manage talent shortage, the trend of adjusting their needs to enable women to do paid work can only be good news.

Who's doing what

Impelsys: Raising percentage of women to 40% in 2022, asking women spouses to join, offering flexible work hours

Allcargo: "Restart" programme for women on a break, flexible work hours

Amazon: Flexi work, exemption from work-related travel, Mothers' Rooms to manage infants

Panasonic: Flex work hours

Bharti Airtel: 24 weeks post-maternity flexible working; Rs 7,000 monthly allowance for the new born for 18 months  

Cognizant: 12-week returnship programme for technology professionals on a break