If you’re a woman and are concerned about your workplace environment, reading this will surely make you happy

When crime against women is on the rise in the country, making women lead in every aspects of professionalism will certainly have its deep impact in the society. Taking an innovative initiative, corporate India is unveiling a wide variety of initiatives to hire, train and promote women in leadership positions.

To attain a better mix of employees, companies like Edelweiss, Maruti, Ford, Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies, Microsoft, MTS India, SAP India and Sapient, have put in place various strategies to hire and retain women, the Economic Times has reported.

For instance, KPMG India plans to improve the ratio of women employees especially at senior levels, which is a mere 10% as compared to 50% at the junior levels. The company is introducing a work from-anywhere policy for its women employees. It is also working on a women leadership programme wherein it is grooming women for higher roles, Shalini Pillay, head of people, performance and culture told The Economic Times.

"All organisations must be equally balanced when it comes to a healthy gender mix as the markets are highly diverse (with an equal or more number of women as customers). Hence, there is a need to improve the number of women at all levels, especially at the top," she added.
This year, Edelweiss is targeting to hire 100 women managers by 2016 for leadership roles, while Tech Mahindra recently concluded a women-only recruitment drive with 200 hires.

The Economic Times informs that Ford India will soon launch a second career programme for women. For a week, Sapient is giving higher referral bonuses to employees who refer a potential woman candidate. Recently, MTS India made it mandatory to give first preference to suitable women candidates for all its openings. "The exclusive women-hiring drive will now be done twice a year at Tech Mahindra. It is focused on increasing gender diversity," Richa Gautam, global head (BSG) and diversity at Tech Mahindra told the financial daily.

Realising the needs of working mothers, companies like Microsoft and HCL Technologies are about to roll out child day-care centres across India. Also, targeting issues around work-life balance, companies like HCL Technologies, Maruti and Ford India will be introducing counselling sessions only for women employees, the ET has reported.

Starting next month, HCL Technologies is planning to launch sessions on guilt-free parenting and managing relationships focused on women employees, says Srimathi Shivashankar, associate vice-president, diversity and sustainability.

On the other hand, Maruti is pushing more of its women employees to participate in motorsports, which so far has been a male-dominated activity. "We are encouraging our women employees especially from the design team to participate in car rallies, which would empower them," ET quoted a Maruti spokesperson.

(Image: Reuters)