Create an equal opportunity:Priya Chetty Rajagopal

Priya Chetty Rajagopal, vice president, Stanton Chase Intl, and convener, CII Women’s Business Leaders Forum (CII WBLF), chats with DNA and provides an expert’s perspective on working women and their concerns.

What are the biggest concerns working women have today?
Flexible work timing is one of the biggest concerns among working women. However, this doesn’t mean that women want to work less, they just expect a little more flexibility like working from home, getting time off to attend to personal obligations.

Also, most people tend to stereotype the issue of flexi-timing being an issue concerning only women, whereas in reality, there are at least 60% men in the workforce who also demand flexi-timing.

Another issue that comes in the way of career advancement among women is that leaders in companies tend to make assumptions about their ability to perform tasks.

For example, it’s very common among seniors to think that a woman who is about to get married might not be ready to take up a challenging assignment. This presumption might be correct in 60% of cases, but the remaining 40% lose out on an opportunity because of this.

What are companies in Bangalore doing to become more women-friendly?
While Delhi and Mumbai can easily be called frontrunners when it comes to empowering their women workforce, the single largest lever that has empowered women in Bangalore is technology as an industry. This lever has helped equate both men and women on an intellectual platform, they are not gender specific.

Do you think options like working from home help women perform better?
Yes. Women, generally have more pressing needs like a child or a parent who needs attention. Today, the concept of being in office for a fixed number of hours has gone out of fashion.

Companies have become result-oriented. As long as the employee’s productivity isn’t compromised, benefits like working from home are a plus. I also feel that women are more comfortable working in organisations that  create a culture of equal opportunity and flexibility.

In what ways have companies changed their policies to suit women?
The percentage of working women has been increasing  and will keep rising. However, even though companies have incorporated programmes where they send recruitment teams for hiring women only, there is a long way to go before there is a significant percentage of women at top levels.

Are working women today happy with the policies?
Today, large IT companies have transparently transferred their global policies to India. In other words, a person who works for the Indian arm of an MNC is given the same benefits that are given to its employees across the globe. This is the way forward and will lead to a further increase in the number of working women in India.