The gender diversity debate at workplaces

Discrimination does exist at the workplace, but it's wrong to blame the management alone

It’s inconceivable that 28-year-old Google employee James Damore didn’t know that he would be sacked after his idiotic criticism of the company’s “women-friendly” gender diversity policies. Damore had argued that biological reasons might explain the under-representation of women in the tech industry, causing widespread outrage inside and outside Google.
 
The latest controversy comes at a time when Silicon Valley has been grappling with accusations of sexual harassment in companies like Uber and pay disparities between men and women employees.
 
The sad reality, however, is that Damore’s comments are only a reflection of the ingrained and entrenched gender-based stereotypes still prevalent at the workplace. Even the tech industry, which has long marched in lockstep on issues such as supporting immigration and diversity, largely has male employees.

 

Consider India Inc’s track record. Though we are a long way off from the earlier blatant sexual discrimination at the workplace, a Gender Balance India Survey by ProEves revealed that the overall participation of women in corporate India is stuck at 20-22 per cent. This sharply falls to 12-13 per cent at senior and top levels. There is no dearth of honest intentions, though. Over 60 per cent of companies have stated goals on diversity and 83 per cent measure it at an organisational level. The problem lies elsewhere: In less than a third of companies, gender diversity is part of leadership KRA (key result area), the survey showed.

 
Other studies show a similar picture. The World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index placed India in the 101st position among 136 countries in a report that makes a global assessment of the progress made in bridging the gender gap. So there is no doubt that women still face double standards and dead ends at the workplace and in senior positions, the unstated glass ceiling and warped mindset still exist across companies.
 
There is also considerable truth in the argument that women employees in India are still fighting an uphill battle for level pegging, in areas such as equal pay for equal work. Consider the findings of a Sakshi survey of 2,400 men and women in a cross-section of workplaces and hierarchies: 80 per cent of respondents said sexual harassment existed at their workplace and 53 per cent said men and women did not have equal opportunities at work. Frequently, managements pressured the victim to withdraw the complaint.

 
Some management consultants have suggested a way out of the poor representation of women at the top: Impose a mandatory quota in the boardroom — something that countries such as Norway, France, Sweden and Spain have done with some degree of success. But ask the CEO of any company, even those led by women, and the response is uniform: It would lay women board members open to criticism and risk, giving the impression that the women don’t deserve to be there and are only there to make up the numbers. That may be the reason reservation for women in boardrooms is dismissed by many as a “golden skirts quota”.

 
Many in corporate India also say that while it’s fashionable to blame everything on poor diversity practices, the fact is that the business door is wide open but women, looking for different and more balanced lives, have not been interested in entering it. CEOs also rubbish the notion of a glass ceiling — a term that evokes the image of a cabal of top male executives scheming to preserve an old boy’s club. Corporate boards are too worried about the bottom line to let any such clubby mentality affect who they hire as board members, they say.
 
They have a point. There is no denying the leaking pipeline syndrome: India sees the maximum drop in representation of women from junior to middle-level positions, and sexual discrimination had little role to play in this. For example, a lot of women drop out of higher studies or their career because of marriage or motherhood. That’s the reason many women in their late 20s and early 30s leave their careers since they find it difficult to do justice to both the roles — a factor cited by managements of many Indian companies to say that they don’t have any control over women’s decision to exit/re-enter the workforce. Flexible work policies or extended leave can, at best, be a minor enabler for those who possess career aspirations.

 
Whatever be the reason, gender diversity is vital to any workplace also for bottom-line business sense. A recent Gallup study showed that gender-diverse business units have better financial outcomes than those dominated by one gender.