Men have always outnumbered women in the IT workforce. The ratio of men to women was 76:24 in 2005 and has balanced out marginally.
It is likely to be 65:35 (men:women) in 2007. Given the bias, Nasscom recently announced it would institute awards for companies to recognise outstanding practices promoting gender empowerment.
While the percentage of women in the IT talent pool is steadily increasing, a majority of women are still at the bottom of the pyramid and there are few women in senior leadership positions. However, many Indian companies and MNCs are taking proactive steps to rectify the skewed numbers.
Capgemini India, for instance, is in a process of creating a Women's Council to see it has policies that are women-friendly. Of the 1,600 workforce of Capgemini India, 18 to 20 per cent are women.
The company plans to increase this to 35-40 per cent in the coming years, says Chandrasekhar Sripada, VP people relationships management, Capgemini Consulting India.
IBM India is another IT major that makes a conscious decision to hire women right at the recruitment level either from women only campuses or regular campuses. Of the 43,000 employees at IBM India, 26 per cent are women.
Organisations are also creating women-focused policies and are going all out to retain them as much a possible. And one of the ways to do this is also giving them enough space to grow.
At Intel, other than flexi hours and maternity leave, the company has a programme called Tele-communicating. This is a formal arrangement between the individual and her business head. Under this one can negotiate the time and the hours that they want to work. One can also arrange the kind of workload they would like to take.
Anish R South Asia Business Group, HR Manager says that for women employee on maternity leave Intel has gradual return to work programme wherein they can start work slowly either by working for a few hours or
days.
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