IBM seeks to up number of women staff

IBM India, which has less number of women employees compared with its global figures, is aggressively pursuing various measures to fill up this gap.

The company has announced paying extra incentive to recruitment consultants to attract more women in the workforce. Anita Guha, Head of Diversity, IBM India, told Business Standard that the initiative has been taken to encourage placement agencies and recruitment consultants to submit larger number of resumes belonging to women.

If the candidate is selected for the job, the company will pay about two per cent extra incentive to the concerned placement agency.

At present, 26 per cent of the total employee population at IBM India consists of women whereas globally, this is 30 per cent.

"Whenever we go to campuses of different engineering colleges in India, we find that the average percentage of women is in the range of 10-15 per cent. So we are taking steps at the organisational level to recruit more women and promote them to take up leadership positions at senior level, which is not quite substantial at present," said Guha.

As on January 2007, IBM had 53,000 employees in India located at their different centres.

As part of its initiatives of attracting, developing and retaining women in the company, IBM India has a dedicated diversity team which runs programmes such as IBM India Women Leadership Council (IWLC) and Women in Technology Initiatives.

The company has also announced partnering with `Your Kids R Our Kids', a pre-school & daycare centre recognised by the Ministry of Elementary Education, to launch a childcare centre in Bangalore.

Bharat Kapoor, director, `Your Kids R Our Kids' said, 25 per cent of the total 200 seats at the childcare centre would be reserved for the kids of IBM employees.

The initiative is part of $50 million Global Work/Life Fund, announced by the company in 2001 and later renewed in 2007, to address strategic work/life challenges for IBM employees wordwide focussing on dependent care.