They are being employed in substantial numbers at lower and middle rungs of the corporate ladder. However, women in leadership positions in the Indian information technology industry can literally be counted on the tips of one's fingers.
Neelam Dhawan heads HP India and Akila Krishnakumar heads SunGard Offshore Services in India. Padmasree Warrior, an Indian-born woman, now heading research and development at Cisco Services as its chief technology officer.
Going by software body Nasscom's figures, around 30 per cent of the total employee base working in the IT sector comprises women. However, personnel analysts who track the sector say the women employee base here could be lower, maybe 24 per cent.
The base within the industry is not equally distributed across the chain, also argues Ganesh Shermon, Partner and Head of People and Change Advisory Services, KPMG. "At the mid-levels, the percentage of women might be around 20 per cent, a bit more at the junior levels, but at the senior levels, it will be just five to six per cent," he says.
The proportion of women to men falls radically after the mid-management level, he asserts, with "the incidence of problems related to children or broken homes, which increases drastically where women are pursuing a larger role in the company."
Pratik Kumar, Executive VP-HR, Wipro Ltd, counters: "This is not really an issue of the IT industry - in fact, the IT industry might be having an even higher percentage of women. The issue is more universal - due to the earlier societal restrictions and the difficulties being faced by the women employees to maintain a work-life balance. But, such problems are ebbing out and we are seeing women employees aspiring for a longer term career, supported by greater understanding from their home front."
IT companies also believe the scenario will change soon. "It's only a matter of time. If you look at Infosys, we had about 19 per cent women employees 10 years ago, and today this number has gone up to 34 per cent. And, many of our women employees are holding critical roles and many senior leadership positions within the company. We can even see many women leaders outside who are heading global IT firms in India. So, sooner or later, we are going to see a change in terms of gender inclusivity in the Indian IT sector," asserts Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO and MD of India's second largest software company, Infosys Technologies.
For instance, Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest IT services company, says 30 per cent of its total employee base of about 130,509, as of the quarter ended December 31, 2009, were women.
Similarly, mid-sized IT services firm MindTree says the base of women employees in the company, now 26 per cent, almost doubled during the past six years. This is almost similar to most global IT firms with significant operations in India.
But, none of these companies has any woman member on the board. Nasscom believes one of the problems of fewer leadership roles in the IT industry is because the number of women opting for engineering courses is few. But, that is fast changing. The year-on-year growth rate of women opting for the engineering stream increased from 22 per cent in FY 2002 to 125 per cent in FY 2008.
IT firms are also taking active steps to remedy the situation. Wipro, for instance, is promoting gender diversity within the company by forging a 'WOW Council' (Women of Wipro Council) almost two years earlier. And, has seen the percentage of women employees in the workforce having risen from 24 per cent to 29 per cent.
The company has also started a Gender Diversity Council with many key senior management people as its members, including the joint CEO of Wipro's IT business, Suresh Vaswani, HR head Pratik Kumar and Anuraag Behar, who will now head Azim Premji Foundation as a co-CEO.
"We try to give exposure to our women employees to different culture and leadership positions, by providing them with flexibility and adequate training so as to groom them to leadership positions," says Sunita Cherian, GM - HR and Head of Gender Diversity at Wipro.
IBM started many women-specific programmes in India in 2005, under the aegis of India Women Leadership Council.
"These programmes help employees manage professional and personal development, and helps us in understanding the perception and barriers to their advancement. It also helps them in networking and enhancing their opportunities," says Seema Ajwani, Chairperson, IBM India Women Leadership Council.
