Shyamal Majumdar: Quota for women directors?

HUMAN FACTOR

Women today comprise only 2 per cent of the total managerial strength in the Indian corporate sector.

Indra Nooyi's climb "" from last year's number 11 to the top of Fortune's 2006 list of power women "" has been breathtaking. Even more encouraging is Fortune's conclusion that the list of brand-name firms with women chief executives is longer and more impressive than ever, after a year of stunning breakthroughs in corner-office hiring.

Add to this, a recent study by Catalyst, a leading researcher of women in the workplace. The study shows that Fortune 500 companies with the highest percentages of women corporate officers yielded, on an average, 35.1 per cent higher return on equity than those with the lowest percentages.

Despite all these feel-good news, the "stunning" breakthroughs seem to have eluded Indian companies. Barring a handful like ICICI Bank, HSBC and Biocon, an overwhelming majority of Indian boardrooms are still no-go areas for women. Women today comprise only 2 per cent of the total managerial strength in the Indian corporate sector.

The reasons are many. The HR head of a large consumer electronics and durables firm says while it's fashionable to attack the so-called sex discrimination in Indian workplace, the fact is women themselves are partly responsible for this. He quotes a BBC report late last year which said at the heart of the matter is the Cinderella complex "" where no matter how successful a woman is, subconsciously she still expects that a prince is going to come along and rescue her.

Many also deny that the problem for women is the glass ceiling or the men's club. The business door is open but that women, looking for different and more balanced lives, have not been interested in entering.

"Women outperform in care-taking qualities and men outperform in taking-charge qualities," says the CEO of another large family-managed Indian firm where women are non-existent in senior management. While the CEO's son is heading an important division in the company, his daughter "" an MBA graduate from a reputed foreign university "" hasn't joined the business. "It's not in our family culture for women to be in business. She is happily married," the CEO says.

These stereotypes are the main reason why surveys have shown that only four out of 10 CEOs in India considered the advancement of women to be critical for their organisations. The increasing feeling is that a majority of Indian companies still have a kind of institutional sexism that assumes women are less able than men.

The problem, however, isn't restricted to India alone. An ILO report says wage differences in male and female managerial jobs all over the world stem from the reality that even when women hold management jobs, they are often in less strategic, lower-paying areas of a company's operations.

But how do you move beyond persuasion to actual results? Though it's a hugely controversial move, one leading HR consultant says the way out could be to follow the Norwegian model. Effective January 1 this year, Norway's government has imposed quotas under which the top 500 publicly traded firms have until 2008 to fill 40 per cent of their boardroom seats with women, or be delisted. France is imposing a 20 per cent quota, while Spain has decided to give preferential treatment to companies who appoint more women on their boards.

There may be huge problems in enforcing such a quota in India as it interferes with corporate freedom and overlooks merit. Besides, when the Department of Company Affairs proposed that 20 per cent of board seats should be reserved for women, lots of women managers themselves thought this was insulting and natural evolution is better than force. Every female director will now feel that she has been appointed just to fill the quota.

The consultant, however, says it may sound outlandish, but experience shows quotas may be the only means of achieving change. A survey done after Norway's move, by Egon Zhender International, showed precisely this. While women's presence on boards in Scandinavia, where quotas have been introduced or mooted, has grown rapidly, in the rest of western Europe, the numbers have hardly changed and in Germany and the Netherlands they have even dropped back.

Women now account for nearly 29 per cent of directors in the biggest Norwegian companies, up from 22 per cent in 2004. In Sweden, Finland and Denmark, where Norway's move has attracted attention and increased pressure for action, the numbers have risen to 23 per cent, 20 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively.