Addressing the Challenge of Women’s Leadership and Talent drain
The challenge of lack of women in leadership positions lies not in the framework of the organization but in the failure to nurture a strong talent pipeline. In the trend toward making a more ‘gender-balanced’ workplace, not many organizations fully understand the reasons behind this need or know how to combat the challenge. Thus, ‘women’s empowerment initiatives usually end up as little more than token events carried out in the form of awkward, half-hearted celebrations or engagement activities, making the entire issue into a circus of sorts featuring the female employees as chief exhibits, different from the workforce somehow, requiring special protection and reminders of being honorary members, to be applauded for their efforts in daring to step out of the house and into the boy’s club. Of course, for most organizations this “empowerment” rarely even stretches that far, becoming limited to the mandatory Sexual Harassment policy and maybe a Women’s Day card.
In the 2012 ‘Women Matter-An Asian Perspective’ report, McKinsey describes “having the best talent in an age of talent scarcity and capitalizing on the particular performance benefits that women in leadership positions bring to an organization” as the key reasons as to why a company needs to recruit and retain female talent. The leadership potential of men and women is equal, the report says. However, the ability to hone and cultivate this potential is where most organizations fail. This is usually due to a lack of understanding of why the drainage occurs in the first place. The drainage in the talent pipeline for female staff occurs in a major way at one particular life stage i.e. transition into family life and motherhood. The lack of adequate support systems within companies for this crucial period sees promising careers either lose steam or halt completely.
This is a challenging phase for any new family but it affects the woman on both an emotional and a physical level. She deals with not just the emotional anxiety of leaving the newborn at home while heading for work but also with a body that is just beginning to heal after months of trials, hormones influx, sleepless nights and in many cases postpartum depression. These factors combined with a lack of understanding and support at the workplace, the expectation to continue with work as usual and the pressing demands of the new arrival often prove too much for a lot of new mothers. The challenge only continues with the balancing act of growing domestic responsibilities and workplace pressures given traditional mindsets of gender roles so that most women make peace with a certain level of career growth, opting to go no further.
All is not lost, of course. In a changing environment, certain market leaders have devised innovative and meaningful policies to combat this phenomenon which form the benchmark for others to follow if they truly wish to capitalize on the full potential of their workforce. Known for its good work life balance, Accenture offers its employees not just flexi time, part time working, compressed work weeks, job sharing and telecommuting but also a Maternity Support Program initiated recently provides Managing Directors as coaches to expecting female executives who help them prepare for the arrival of their children. An on-boarding Maternity Returners Program provides guidance for re-entry of women into the company.
Another famously women-friendly employer Deloitte, with nearly 45% representation of women on its workforce, offers flexible work schedules, up to 40 days of paid leave per year and after spending two years with the company, employees may avail a partly paid sabbatical for up to 6-8 months. Apart from this an average of 14 weeks of maternity leave, adoption leave and assistance along with a $5000 reimbursement per child make the organization an attractive employer for mothers. Of course, when speaking of innovative HR policies one can never leave Google out of the picture. This policy pioneer recently realized that new mothers are twice as likely to quit as compared to other employees and decided to extend its maternity leave to five paid months. The result? The company experienced a 50% decline in the number of new mothers quitting as more chose to return to work post maternity leave, thus saving the company large sums it would otherwise have to spend on hiring and training replacements, not to mention the knowledge drain.
What these companies have understood is the need of the hour for others hoping to compete in the talent market and optimizing the potential of their workforces. The challenge of hiring and retaining women is not an insurmountable one but lack of understanding and overhyping often attract attention away from the crucial aspects which make an institution a truly gender-inclusive employer.
Author: Arunima Mishra
Author Information: Arunima Mishra is a first year student pursuing her Master’s degree in Human Resources Management & Labour Relations from TISS, Mumbai
