How can Women get back into their Careers?
by Amit Bhagria on Saturday, July 7th, 2012 | 4 Comments
Sometime back I got a question from one of my subscriber’s on the Young HR Manager list, on a similar issue. I wrote a reply on the HR Helpline which can be read here. I read an article in Times of India addressing the similar concern and thought of sharing it with my readers. Hope it throws more light on the issue raised by women these days. Check out the article below.
Newspaper: The Times of India
Issue date: 6th July
Author: Mini Joseph Tejaswi TNN
Many women sacrifice their careers for someone or something close to their heart. It could be to move with the spouse to his new work location, to raise a family, or to take care of an ailing parent. A large number of women in the 26 to 38 years age group even stay away from work for fertility treatments.
It is estimated that India has over 1.5 million women who have quit their corporate jobs and who have been out of work for 2 to 10 years. Some 90% of them want to return to work but only 20% are able to do so. That’s because most Indian enterprises are apprehensive of hiring women who have taken breaks, the assumption being that they are not serious professionals.
But things are changing. Many corporates in India—including IBM, Accenture, Cognizant, Genpact, Kotak Group, HUL, Fidelity, Dell, Microsoft, Amazon, Vodafone, HSBC, ABB and Britannia—are said to be working on “returnship’’ or “second career’’ programmes for women. The programme is aimed at bringing women who quit their careers to the workforce again. The initiative is often linked to the companies’ gender diversity drive. Many have an internal mandate for better representation of women. Even the United Nations wants global enterprises to help women rise in organizations, as that’s seen to be critical for sustainable development.
Nirmala Menon, CEO of Interweave Consulting, a Bangalore-based diversity management firm, said, “Companies are currently reworking their HR policies with a focus on diversity and gender inclusion. We help organizations to articulate their policies better.’’
People policies often tend to be biased. Many men are uneasy with having women in leadership roles. Many wonder whether women could travel for weeks—as is required in many jobs today —and whether they could work in the night leaving children and spouses back at home. Such concerns may be relevant for some women, but for many others, they are no longer so. “The leadership in companies should understand these things completely. So we speak to them very candidly. It’s a serious change management issue and a culture change issue. It takes a lot of education,’’ said Menon.
Saundarya Rajesh, founder president of AVTAR Career Creators, a firm that has helped 4,000 women build second careers, said, “When a woman takes an absolutely legitimate break from work, why can’t she come back gracefully? We are not blaming men here. But no one should look at women who are making a come back suspiciously.”
ON THE JOB
• Around 90% of them want to be back at work but only 20% are able to do so
• Most Indian companies don’t see women who have taken breaks in career as serious professionals
• India has estimated 1.5m women who have quit corporate jobs and have been out of work for 2-10 years
What are your views on this? Let me know any initiative taken in your organization in this direction.
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i totally agree with this,women are not coming back to their career life after a long /Short break what ever.The main reason in my point of view is that women think a lot about their children and of course they are habitat to that particular schedule and in some cases spouse may not be support to start her career.As in the article women moves according to their spouse job place because as per Indian tradition and all she has to do that because men is the head of the family so many women are leaving their jobs even they are in higher positions.
As rightly pointed by you only 20% are able to return back to work, because they are not taken seriously.
I have applied for a number of jobs, and not got a single call suiting my profile ! There are also none/ or just too few part time or flexi time jobs available in India as such.
A woman has many roles in life, but the Indian corporate sector does not try to make suitable policies to make life easy for them. Take for instance even the Maternity Benefit Act allows only 3 months leave with pay.
If a married woman with kids has to work full time lets say 930 to 6. She has to wake up, organise/ make breakfast,send the husband to work,see the kids off to school, have the house cleaned, eat, leave. She has to leave an hour early to reach in time so all this has to be done before 830 AM. So maybe she wakes up by 530 AM.
When she returns from work, similar story. Come back 7 PM. Kids homework, dinner, general housework, prepare for the next day and sleep by 10. And if its a 6 day work week, Sunday is the only time off. Which is not really an off. There is a list of things waiting to be done. Wives and mothers can be the most effective multi taskers as they manage so many aspects in their daily lives ( if they have the time)
It’s time for more companies to amend the way they work and maybe get more mature, multi skilled and seasoned staff on board, with flexi timings and reasonable pay, not charity.
this is really something good where HR people should focus and give some better option for women to start their work again.
my mom is going and learn human resource management