Sumana Iyengar highlights how an inclusive work culture can lead to successful and agile workplaces of the future

One of the many things the pandemic has taught us is the need to build an agile and innovative company that is not only well prepared to tackle an unexpected crisis but also one that can survive and possibly thrive through it all. And this is possible only with a visionary leadership and a robust team of diverse people at its core.

While diversity and inclusive workplaces have been a subject of corporate conversations for the past few years, their significance and role in building a successful workplace have yet to be properly understood.

Women at the workplace, both in leadership and executive roles, have tremendously contributed towards the growth and agility of the workplace while offering an amicable and pleasant work environment. As per the Egon Zehnder Global Diversity Report 2020, women in India currently occupy 17 per cent of board positions in corporate India, an increase of 8.6 per cent since 2012. However, they fall behind when it comes to leadership posts and only 11 per cent of committee chairs are held by women compared to the 27.3 per cent globally.

While there have been several conversations concerning better representation of women in leadership roles, and equal pay et al, India has a long way to go, considering the need to focus on basics such as inclusive and diversified hiring process, and encouraging a safe work environment to voice biases and concerns around workplace harassment, before moving forward to effective grooming and mentorship programme for their women employees.

Here is a list of four key people policies that can help accelerate the attempt at building more inclusive workplaces for women, and increasing their visibility in leadership roles:

Cross-sectional diversity

The first step towards inclusivity for any organisation is to balance the gender representation across the so-called ‘female-dominated’ and ‘male-dominated’ sections. For example, having an ‘all women’ or ‘majority women’ employees in the HR department, vs. a sales and marketing/tech support team replete with men, should be consciously re-looked at. The results will help create a truly diversified fabric of the organisation, helping to eliminate some problems from the roots.

Create safer work environments

An inclusive workplace is also one which offers a safe and respectful work environment, while focussing on equal representation, across departments in the company. Creating an unbiased and safe platform for all employees to come forward and raise concerns or report gender-based discriminatory behaviour would be vital to preserve diverse work cultures. This will not only help in creating a safer and more acceptable work environment for employees but also build stronger trust and employee loyalty.

Training programmes

Another important aspect of growth for the organisation and its employees is regular training and mentoring programs. However, a lot of companies create training schedules and modules that may not be suitable for women, automatically depriving them of an important career opportunity to gain knowledge and training. For example, off-site training and workshops that often stretch over two-three days, may be difficult for women employees who have additional personal responsibilities. Access to effective training and mentoring, be it online or in person, is every employee's right and the duty of every company. A more thoughtful and inclusive approach to training schedules and modules is thus needed to ensure a non-biased and gender-inclusive approach is offered to all employees. 

Unbiased growth opportunities

Last but not the least, every company should aspire to provide equal opportunities to all deserving professionals, irrespective of their gender. Additionally, without the biased approach of creating reservations and favouritism-based roles, an essential aspect of nurturing talent would be to mentor, groom and lead it to realise its true potential. A gender-neutral ranking and promotion system are some of the important aspects of this process. Coupled with a ‘minimum pay’ benchmark per designation, which is not judgemental towards the gender but the overall talent and experience of the employee can be a game-changer. 

In the backdrop of COVID and the rise of digitisation, there has been a renewed focus on intangible skills, including interpersonal and innovative problem-solving skills, which distinguish the unique value add that companies can provide, over and above the tech-enabled, operational efficiency. Qualities of critical, creative, and collaborative thinking skills are set to see tremendous growth along with traits such as emotional intelligence, effective communication, empathy and self-regulation that go beyond what machines or some ‘efficient’ employees are capable of. And this makes it even more important for companies to focus on not just the functional aspect of employee productivity but also the emotional and creative aspect, which can thrive only in a truly diverse work environment.

(The author is the CEO and co-founder of Goavega Software Pvt Ltd, a product engineering and design house.)