Opinion: Missing diversity in workplace

Businesses have always asked during hiring: Will it further ‘growth’? They now need to ask: Will it further ‘social justice’?

By Arun Sinha

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) prides itself on being one of the biggest employers of women in the science and technology sector. About 35% of its 6 lakh employees are women. It has also been consciously promoting women to leadership positions. About 30% of its business development and delivery managers are women. But is this the general scene in the industry? No.

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According to the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), the percentage of women in India’s industry dropped from 32% in 2016 to 23% in 2018. The percentage improved to 25% in 2019, which was still 7% below the 2016 figure. It was almost the same as in Pakistan and Arab countries, where high walls of orthodoxy discourage female education and employment. In Bangladesh, women make up 57% of the workforce; in China, 64%. Women in India are lagging far, far behind in industrial employment. Why?

Lagging Behind

One, certain sectors such as manufacturing, mining, oil, gas, construction and engineering employ few women. The traditional thinking of employers in these sectors has been that their jobs are physically too demanding for women to handle. That means a vast area of industrial employment is closed to women. ABB, the Swiss power and manufacturing company, had only 9% women in its workforce in India in 2018.

Two, Indian businesses lack a deep commitment to inclusive growth. Their vision is restricted to their own growth. If men from advantaged communities with better cultural lineage, education, urban exposure and language skills can provide satisfactory-enough goods and services for their businesses, why should they go looking for women from the same communities or men and women from disadvantaged communities? That seems to be the mindset.

It is a blinkered attitude. Women and lower castes are historically disadvantaged groups. The nation’s goal is to establish social and gender equality. The government, political parties, the judiciary, social reform movements, non-governmental organisations, the media and enlightened citizens are all working to help the nation achieve that goal. The industry must join this collective endeavour. They must make the development of women and lower castes integral to the development of their businesses. A society without social discrimination is a peaceful, happy and stable society. To establish such a society is in the interest of everybody, including businesses. They have to keep this long-term perspective in mind.

Three, the levers of management in businesses are in the hands of upper castes. According to the ‘State of Working India’ published by the Centre for Sustainable Development, Azim Premji University in 2018, most of the professionals and senior managers are from upper castes. Most lower-grade employees are from the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. According to several studies, women too are not preferred for leadership positions. This can be called anything but inclusive growth.

Hiring Policy

The first step the businesses need to take is to recast their hiring policy. The aim of the policy should be what the aim of the nation is: growth with social justice. Businesses have always asked during recruitment: Will it further ‘business growth’? They now need to ask a second question: Will it further ‘social justice’? We are not suggesting quotas. We are only asking businesses to balance the cause of business growth with the cause of social justice. It demands a very fine balance. But there is no escape from it. It is in their interest. It is in the nation’s interest.

One of the fundamental principles of the hiring policy should be that the managers on the hiring team are free from any prejudices. Businesses should conduct sensitisation sessions for their managers to disabuse their minds of bias and chauvinism and to carry them along on the path of growth with social justice as enlightened leaders. They should conduct sensitisation sessions for their male workers too, so that women and lower-caste workers recruited by the hiring team settle down to work in a hospitable and comradely atmosphere. They should create platforms to regularly organise programmes and dialogues to bring down the walls of prejudice and build a culture of inclusivity in the workplace. When workers imbibe an inclusive culture, they can influence the growth of such culture in their families and society too.

Equal Advantage

The second step the businesses need to take is to put employees from historically disadvantaged communities in leadership positions along with those from advanced communities. There is a wrong perception that women and lower-caste persons lack the competence to lead a team. The reality is that they grow up in far more challenging environments compared to the high-caste male employees and hence develop their own creative and practical problem-solving skills. They can surprise you with their out-of-the-box solutions.

The third step businesses need to take is to promote diversity at the top level. If persons from disadvantaged communities are placed in positions where they can influence company policy, businesses can move faster on the road to an equitable society. The Companies Act,

2013, made it compulsory for all publicly listed firms to have at least one woman director. Data shows that more than two-thirds of companies have still not appointed a woman director. Even where women have been appointed directors, they are not placed on key board committees. Thus they are given no influential role in the company’s governance.

When demands for extending job quotas in the private sector were raised in the early 2000s, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) came up with a voluntary programme of affirmative action. The CII set four agendas for its members: Education, Employability, Employment and Entrepreneurship. They were to allocate funds for the education and skilling of young persons from socially disadvantaged communities. The agendas have proven to be merely an extension of their corporate social responsibility. The companies have not used them to transform their internal governance, management and human capital policies. This is despite the fact that countless global studies have shown that a more diverse workforce is more innovative, productive and customer-friendly and can significantly improve a company’s growth.