POINTS TO PONDER

of the 227 women business leaders from across sectors say gender diversity was beneficial for the growth of their organisations.

A YES Bank- CFO Insights survey of raising women’s participation in the workforce to the level of men can boost the

IMF research shows According to the Monster Salary Index on gender for 2016, the gender pay gap ranged from a relatively low 14.7% in the education and research sector to 21.5% in the banking, financial services and insurance sector and 25.8% in the IT sector.

It is critical to work on changing behaviours and perceptions at all levels and working with a combination of positive and negative interventions.

Increase leadership commitment and the right tone at the top.

Women certainly want to know what helps or hurts their careers.

Moving the needle in the diversity space depends on how organisations can positively influence some of the key statistics around experienced hiring, gender proportionally for promotions and reviewing pay equity

about these practical markers so they understand where they stand, can make their own case successfully.

At PwC India, there are approximately 32 per cent women, which is not the best, but it is definitely a good representation. But like any other organisation, the challenge is women representation at senior levels. While we are almost 50 per cent at the entry level, the number steadily falls as employees move up the career graph and falls to approximately 10 to 15 per cent at the senior levels. But, even this has been achieved over the past number of years’ thanks to efforts in the right direction viz., committed leadership, clear accountability metrics, applying a diversity lens at decision making points, an array of women friendly policies including flexibility options like work from home and/ or part time, full circle programme for facilitating women to come back after a break, lean in groups for young parents, special drives for recruitment of experienced women including through referral programmes, filling in vacancies caused by women exits only with women candidates, mentoring women at the manager level, and constantly engaging with high performing women.

Moving the needle in the diversity space depends on how organisations can positively influence some of the key statistics around experienced hiring, gender proportionality for promotions, reviewing pay equity and enhancing the number of women in leadership roles. And it needs a lot of perseverance to make the needle move!

( Asha Ramanathan is an audit partner in the Mumbai office of PricewaterhouseCoopers. She also champions the causes of gender diversity and corporate social responsibility.)