A club for inclusion of 30% of women in company boards has recently made an entry at Cass Business School, London. The club’s big move is to open doors to get women higher, up the corporate ladder. The club, as such was initially started in November last year by Helena Morrissey, CEO of Newton and some other corporate biggies in UK. Called the 30% Club, its intention is to make a bid for inclusion of women in corporate boards in UK.
Will this influence Indias boardrooms to be more gender-balanced? Indian b-schools say that this club can be content on being a UK feature. With so much of ‘reservation’ already in the system, we don’t need more.
Gay Collins, Chairman of MHP Communications and 30% club steering committee member, made the goals of the club clear. The objective is to get 30% female representation on FTSE 100 boards by 2015, he said. FTSE 100 stands for Financial Times Stock Exchange which is a share index of 100 of the most highly capitalised UK companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. But will the club have a global effect spilling over to India? We are focusing on the UK at the moment but weve had a lot of interest in the club, and what its aiming to do, globally, said Collins.
Going by the numbers, India seems to be far from implementing anything close to 30% in its corporate boards. A study by Catalyst, a non-profit that aims at increasing opportunities at work for women, tries to understand the relationship between Indian leadership and women. The Catalyst report, released in November 2010, cites older data to say that the number of women opting for MBA has increased over the years and was between 14-16% during 2004-2006. But it says that most of these women who are employed in the corporate sector get stuck in junior or middle management and scarcely reach the top.
Aarti Shreedhar, a second year MBA student at IIM (A), thinks that there is no need for a quota of 30% for women. There is already a reservation for caste in India, if women in top positions were to also to come through quota, then their merit will not be appreciated,” she said. Padma Chari, who completed her executive MBA from XLRI and has been working since 1995, also believes that unlike the parliament, reservation might not work in the corporate system. Chari, who works in a boutique consulting firm that recruits for senior positions in management, has observed that American companies who have offices in India are already quite aware of being gender sensitive while hiring.
According to Kanan Dhru, a lawyer who has consulted with McKinsey & Company and is the founder of Research Foundation for Governance in India, the reason that so many professionally trained women don’t reach the top is that the corporate rules and attitudes are tilted in favour of men in the workplace. Most women have to take 3-4 years off post pregnancy and find it hard to return and reach the positions in top management, said Dhru. “Those who do reach the top, work for their father’s or husband’s company. I think the 30% club initiative is somewhat like the reservation question that Indian women have been fighting for and I hope that it is applied in India as well, but it will have to be implemented with care so that meritorious men don’t lose out either.
In February this year, Dhru also started a forum for women entrepreneurs and she mentors them in collaboration with IIM Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship. The forum holds lectures and meetings to encourage women who are already entrepreneurs or wanting to be entrepreneurs. On being asked why a governance research organisation should start such a forum, she replied saying that her own example of setting up an organisation had many women come up to her for advice and encouragement. The forum helps women start home based businesses like bakery or jewellery making or even gives advice on trading and starting manufacturing companies. After I started my organisation, many women wanted to know what lessons can be learnt, she said. I hope that organizations started by women entrepreneurs will have more equal opportunities for women.
But the reality in Indian corporations remains that women still form a minority when it comes to board membership. The Catalyst study cites data saying that only 4.9% of board directors in India are women. Whereas a report by Standard Chartered Bank and Cranfield School of Management and Community Business shows that just 5.3% of 1,112 directorships of the top 100 companies listed in the Bombay Stock Exchange are women.
So what are Indian companies doing to change this? Annice Joseph, senior manager at Wipro, is a part of the gender and diversity inclusion team that works from Bangalore to ensure gender-balance at the workplace. A couple of years ago, Wipro had hired external surveyors to understand the needs of women at the workplace and found that women have different needs at different life stages. We ensure that those who are coming back from maternity leave get reskilled to be at par with their male colleagues who did not take a break, she said. In the higher positions, we mentor them and groom women leaders to make them ready to apply for the top positions. She also added that inspite ensuring a gender-balance at the sourcing stage of recruiting for top positions, the number of resumes from women candidates is low and representative of the resource pool available in the market.
Considering the fact that the bill for 33% reservation for women in Parliament is still under legislation after 14 years of struggle, it seems like a long wait before India’s board rooms will be gender balanced. In the mean time, maybe women will choose to go the entrepreneurial way instead of breaking their heads against the glass ceiling?