Unleashing the female potential: Genpact’s approach towards promoting gender diversity

Published date12 June 2017
Pages147-149
Date12 June 2017
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-10-2016-0091
AuthorShweta Shrivastava,Anupama Rajesh
Subject MatterHR & organizational behaviour,Employee behaviour
Unleashing the female potential: Genpact’s
approach towards promoting gender diversity
Shweta Shrivastava and Anupama Rajesh
Shweta Shrivastava is based at
Amity International Business
School, Amity University, Noida,
India. Anupama Rajesh is based at
Amity Business School, Amity
University, Noida, India.
What is diversity?
Diversity refers to any dimension on
the basis of which individuals can
be differentiated. It may refer to
observable attributes such as age,
gender, race, skin colour, disability
status, parental status, geography,
etc. It also encompasses invisible or
less observable forms of differences
such as working styles, thinking
styles, personal beliefs, personality
traits, etc. (Ferdman and Sagiv,
2012).
In an organization, diversity can be
perceived as an umbrella under
which there are employees
belonging to various groups or
classifications. It is an “all-inclusive”
term that refers to policies and
practices that seek to include
individuals who are different from
traditional members (Herring, 2009).
Diversity makes an organization a
heterogeneous place where
employees may perceive, think, feel
and behave differently.
What is gender diversity?
Gender diversity in an organization
is attained when there is a fair
representation of all genders in the
workforce. A gap in this
representation or a gender gap,
especially at senior positions of
management, has been observed
globally. A research conducted in
91 countries by the Peterson
Institute for International Economics
in 2016 revealed that nearly
one-third of the 21,980 firms
surveyed did not have any female
representation in senior executive
positions (i.e. Chief Executive
Officer, Chief Operating Officer,
Chief Financial Officer, etc.) or on
their Board of Directors (Noland
et al., 2016).
A 2008 report by the Gender
Advisory Council of PwC compares
the continuous exit of competent
and skilled women from the talent
pipeline of an organization to
leakage of water from a faulty and
perforated pipeline (PwC Gender
Advisory Council, 2008). It states
that at an entry level, the number of
women in an organization is almost
equal to that of men. However, this
number of female employees
reduces at a fast rate due to
voluntary terminations, especially at
the mid-level career stage. This
implies that eventually there will be
fewer women at the top, which will
result in loss of resources and
productivity for the organization.
Multiple and conflicting priorities in
lives of women are often cited as
one of the main reasons for their
professional careers reaching a
plateau, getting slowed down or
disrupted. At mid and senior levels
in organizations, ensuring “anytime,
anywhere” availability at work is
becoming the norm for accelerated
career progression. Since most
women are also primary caregivers
at home, they often find it difficult to
HR at work
DOI 10.1108/SHR-10-2016-0091 VOL. 16 NO. 3 2017, pp. 147-149, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1475-4398 STRATEGIC HR REVIEW PAGE 147

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