September 2013
One of the matters quite close to my heart !
For starters, it
is not a rant. Not even a disgruntled discourse. In all honesty, it is a simple
account of my journey from a stardust-in-her-eyes , raring to go young
professional to a disillusioned, stay at home mother. And while chasing that
elusive and mythical work-life balance, i have stumbled across some very
pertinent questions that need to be answered.
The basic
premise behind this entire piece is whether the Indian Corporate system is
women friendly. And despite a lot of tall claims and debates, the reality is
grim and morose.
A lot has been
written and said about gender equality and gender sensitivity in the work
force. How out of a large no of women joining the corporate sector year after
year, a major chunk drop out before or at the middle level and a very minuscule
percentage make it to top positions / boardrooms. Heads shake in disapproval,
there is talk about reforms and policy shifts and yet the end result is always
dismal. At least this is what it is to a large extent. There are always
exceptions, i agree.
The main reason
behind this drop out is family commitments. Translation – the moment a woman
becomes a mother, her corporate life is practically over. And at par with
practical issues, is the corporate mindset. Let me explain how.
When a man
becomes a father, his stake in the corporate world rises. He is seen as more
stable, responsible and a mature asset for the company. On the contrary, the
moment a woman declares she is going to be a mother, her competence and
relevance become questionable and she becomes a liability. While a certain
amount of concern and sensitivity is required with a pregnant employee, why
should pregnancy or motherhood render an otherwise excellent company resource
as a handicap or invalid, is beyond my logical mind.
And the answer
is short term profits. On hearing about a pregnant employee, almost every
organization does a quick calculation of how many months of optimum productivity
would be lost because of the impending motherhood. And hence a better solution
would be to take on a new resource that would not be bound by these
constraints. The pregnant employee meanwhile will be relegated to a less
”challenging” role and as is expected, in most cases, voluntarily withdraw from
active service within the first 3-4 years of a baby’s life !
While in theory
such a calculation proves superb, it’s harming the organization and the corporate
setup at large in the long run. Retention is better than attrition and a
stable, settled employee is always more productive than a new resource is
something that HR journals are made up of. And yet so little of it is practiced
in reality.
Then there is
this mammoth issue of support systems for working mothers. Barring a small
percentage of “lucky” women to have family support, a large no of them have to
rely on uneducated and untrained maids or for the need of choosing a lesser
evil – the day care centers. To begin with the maid system, i don’t think
anybody needs to be educated about the perils of leaving a young child alone
with a maid. Notwithstanding the CCTVs, unannounced surprise visits to home and
overlooking a lot of small & big things – each day starts with a prayer for
a safe day for your child. That the maid is feeding your child properly and not
mistreating her, you invariably have to put up with the influence and grooming
your child gets at the hands of a maid. She is after all, a maid ! And 3-4
hours of spending quality time with your toddler will never negate the effects
of 10-12 hours of the maid’ upbringing !
Day care centers
are no better for they are largely a part of an unregulated system. Hygiene,
meals, involvement are always an issue. Here is where my personal experience of
a very highly reputed day care comes
into picture. It’s a very upmarket day care, lauded for its live web streaming
facility and net savvy tactics. The reality is that most of the caregivers
there are not appropriately trained in child handling, something that you will
expect of a day care of this standard. And the meals are a big issue. For all
the fancy claims about having a nutritionist on board, it fails me to
understand why do young kids need nutritional guidance. As long as its not junk
food or stale/sub standard ingredients being used, kids need all the energy
they can get. Serving dry roti rolls with just a filling of beans/carrot (at
times twice in a day), watery daal with not even a drop of ghee, no side
salad/yoghurt, and watery kheer / custard with barely a single fruit – for any
sensible and health conscious mother who feeds her child aloo paranthas,
daal/roti with ghee, yoghurt and salad everyday just to make sure all food
groups are included in her child’s diet – it is a nightmare! And when your
child starts losing weight you in arguably question your need to work!
Here i tend my
apology for digressing from the core topic. But in order to understand the life
and choices of a working mother, it was important to understand her pressures.
And now comes
the most potent force behind this drop out. The attitude of superiors at work
place. As i said earlier, a working mother is always considered an average
performer. Just because she might have to leave early to pick up her child from
day care or tend to family commitments too, her perception is always on the
bottom. So an employee who wastes 2 hours every day in cigarette/coffee/lunch /
net surfing breaks in office is still a better performer because he is clocking
in the required hours or staying back late. Whereas a mother who finishes her
work but wants to leave early is a waste of company resources! So they fare
poorly at appraisals, given half a chance at promotions / pay hikes and not
given meaty profiles/projects.
Also widely
rampant is the phenomenon of exploiting women who are on a comeback after a
child break. Not only are they forced to accept lower designations and lower
pay packages, the prospective employers very smugly point it out that they no
longer have professional networking or pose a greater risk of not being able to
match up to their job expectations. i have come across many a such discriminating
come-back tales. And the questions to be asked here are - a woman might have
lost out on 3 years of professional life but that does not give the employers
the right to pay her even lesser than what she was getting. How can they deduct
her sabbatical years from her work ex? And reviving professional skills or
networking is just a matter of days, there has to be some merit for experience
too! For those who need a reality check, one of the prospective employers very
candidly shared that companies have to look after their interests too. If they
are getting a better experienced person for an X amount of money for which they
would normally get a fresher / less exp, why will they not take it. So they
corner the women on their gap, making it their disadvantage and make it work in
their favour. if this is not exploitation, then i don’t know what is !
Which brings me
back to the last part of this piece and your very justifiable query after
reading all this – what is the role of the Corporate here?
The answer –
take responsibility of your potential 50% work force!
Formulate women
friendly policies. When the govt can come up with a scheme like Aanganwaadi where
the women labourers are encouraged to work by providing them with a caregiver
for their children at their place of work, what is stopping the more educated
and sensible organizations from providing day care facilities at the workplace?
How about some
efforts to push for the regulation of the day care industry? If the corporate
bodies can lobby for important policies with the government, they can surely
extend their support to this cause as well.
Even promote or
tie-up with leading / credible caregiver / nanny providing agencies that
provide trained, educated, certified nannies to the women employees. I cannot
for a moment think of any working mother who would not avail of such a
facility. And that it’s boosting the employee morale, bringing immense job
satisfaction and increasing company loyalty, could be any layman’s guess.
And lastly do
not treat working mothers as a liability. Work out a system wherein maybe the
women who are in particularly taxing roles like sales, get a more relaxed
profile for 2 years or maybe can do with flexi timings or work from home
option. The amount of time that gets wasted in office commute esp. in metros
can very easily be utilized tending to her family commitments. Also 4 fully
productive hours are way better than 8 exhausting hours. There could always be
weekly review meetings at office. Believe me any mother would certainly look
forward to that weekly review, if it means doing away with those motherly duties
for a couple of hours!
In a nutshell,
nurture your 50% equally and at times better productive work force. It’s all
about nurturing from within the organization, just like a tree which when the
time comes reaps huge rewards. Because nothing spells a more stable, loyal
employee than a working mother who is happy at her work.
And let’s not
forget, given the current social scenario, when we talk about changing the
societal mindset and sensitizing the society, we are in reality doing just the
opposite. The biggest role player in a child’s life and thus the society at
large – a mother- is being de-incentivized for being just that – a mother! For,
in all my limited but exhausting experience as a mother, the fact is that
babies need copious amounts of quantity time and slowly as the child grows, quality
very easily replaces quantity . So actually it’s all a function of time. If we
can only have some patience and look for long term rewards!
Till the time we
do this, the proverbial GLASS CEILING will never be shattered!!!
