The Godrej DEI Lab's first event of 2023, the Women in India Inc. Summit, brought together some of India's most influential women business leaders. On February 22 this year, we hosted a day of dialogue, brainstorming and calls to action, we heard crucial insights, best practices, and strategies for fostering workplace inclusion across sectors. The event was held in collaboration with the Udaiti Foundation, Centre for Economic Data and Analysis at Ashoka University, and Dasra.
The summit kicked off with a closed-door roundtable on Hiring Manger Practices and Perspectives, and the release of the Udaiti Foundations hiring manager survey Fostering Gender-Inclusive Workplaces: Insights from HR Leaders in India Inc.
Afterwards, over a lunch of thukpa and som tam salad, participants extended the discussion amongst themselves, chatting about best practices and bringing in insights from across industry. Meanwhile, the DEI Lab team was setting up for our biggest event yet. As the auditorium filled up, we spotted attendees grooving to our playlist made up of women artists from around the world - from Ciara's Level Up and Blackpink's How You Like That, to the life-affirming Enjoy Enjaami, which features Dhee and the writer Arivu, who sings in the voice of his grandmother, a tea plantation worker in Sri Lanka.
The theme of the public event was 'Leading the Shift,' and keynote speakers and panellists drilled down into the nuances of making workplaces gender-inclusive, and what that means on the ground. Speakers brought their expertise and experience in industries ranging from the FMCG business to technology and the banking and finance sector.
Among our presenters and speakers were Nisaba Godrej, Executive Chairperson of Godrej Consumer Products Ltd.; Ashish Dhawan, Founder and CEO of the Convergence Foundation (TCF); and Ashwini Deshpande, Professor of Economics, and Founding Director, Centre for Economic Data and Analysis (CEDA) at Ashoka University, India.
Our panellists included Manisha Girotra, CEO of Moelis India; Prabha Narasimhan, Managing Director and CEO of Colgate-Palmolive; Shyamala Gopinath, former Chairperson of HDFC Bank & deputy governor at the Reserve Bank of India; and Sunita Cherian, Chief Culture Officer & SVP of Corporate HR at Wipro Limited
Nisaba Godrej delivered a bracing set of opening remarks, in which she acknowledged freely that while Godrej Industries Limited and Associates was “above average” in some aspects of meeting its DEI goals, it was “certainly not excellent,” and urged her colleagues as well as everyone in the room to strive to bridge existing gaps. “I love the author Glennon Doyle's statement that 'Imagination is not where you go to forget reality but to remember it,'” she said. “And reality should be us living and working in a gender balanced world.”
The philanthropist Ashish Dhawan called for “data-backed action” to transform the picture. His remarks that women's economic empowerment is crucial to make India a $10 trillion economy in the next decade through data-backed evidence, meaningful collaborations and scalable solutions. He advocated for the Women in India Inc. Summit as a form of nuanced dialogue on hiring, retention, returnship, advancement, and leadership of women in corporate India. Dhawan also delved into Udaiti's Closing the Gender Gap Data Platform, and briefly introduced the sector scorecard for pharmaceutical industry.
Dr. Ashwini Deshpande argued that gender bias persisted because of what she described as “demand-side barriers,” the material conditions that affected social norms around women's employment and economic activity. As per data from the government of India, some of these norms are already changing, she pointed out. Total fertility rates are on a downtrend, there are more women than men enrolled in higher education nationwide, and there is an uptick in women's labour force participation rates. So the supply-side factors look good, Dr Deshpande argued. It is employers, industry and institutions that must effect structural changes to break the vicious cycle of women's exclusion.
Highlights from the Panel Discussion:
A panel followed, moderated by the fabulous Sheeren Bhan, Managing Editor at CNBC-TV18, featuring equally fabulous women, who shared insights from sectors as diverse as monetary policy, the FMCG sector, investment banking, and technology. There were some things in common across sectors, as we discovered when listening to Manisha Girotra, CEO Moelis India, and Prabha Narasimhan, MD, Colgate-Palmolive, talk about their early-career experiences in male-dominated businesses. Many women succeed despite from experiences that are unfortunately immersed in everyday misogyny and sexism, and uninformed notions around gender and women.
Shyamala Gopinath, former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, spoke of how women need not be daunted, but should go ahead and apply for and avail of all the opportunities before them. She also expressed the hope that India will have a woman head for the RBI in the future.
The panel also discussed specific inclusion policies like maternity leave where the number of dropouts post maternity leave is high. Sunita Rebecca Cherian, Chief Culture Officer, WIPRO, insisted that we need policies and foster cultural change to ensure that a woman's return from maternity leave is comfortable and welcoming. Sunita Cherian further urged comapnies to restructure hiring processes, particularly for women returning to work.
Cherian further brought to notice one of the perils of making inclusion easier through AI (Artificial Intelligence) by pointing out that if a certain group of people (men in this case) feed data into AI, the technology becomes biased.
Prabha Narasimhan added that men were crucial allies, citing her own experience where her husband spent time with her child who was writing exams, allowing her to focus at work. Manisha Girotra picked up on the theme, pointing out that we now have a generation of empowered women, and need a generation of men who can deal with empowered women. And that how ensuring inclusion of a group of women rather than a single woman in an organization leads to women's voice being heard and over a long period of time, women inclusivity will become culture for that organization.
This also echoed the general consensus that we need at least 25-33% representation of women directors on boards, otherwise any representation at this level ends up being a mere outlier.
We echo the thoughts of one of the attendees, Gopika Kapoor, a neurodiversity/autism DEI Consultant, who shared how the conversation on gender inclusivity also paved the way for elaborating upon other marginalities. Just as men must reflect on their efforts to make room for women, the neurotypical structure of the work and the system also need to pave the way for neurodivergent people. Following this line of arguments, our workplaces are also structured in heteronormative ways. To initiative inclusive spaces for queer individuals, one needs to create sufficient space, relook at hiring practices and allow them to provide feedback to these pertinent changes. These points were also echoed in our past two events - Rainbow Reflections: Inclusion Insights from Global LGBT+ Leaders and PwD Inclusion in Workplaces: Strategies for Success.
The panel was followed by a QnA session with the audience. After this, Shereen Bhan launched The Circle of Champions, a CEDA and Udaiti Foundation initiative. The circle is designed to catalyse meaningful action by uniting a group of trailblazers across sectors to champion an inclusive workplace. More information is available here.