Invisible at the top
C.V. MADHAVI
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Why aren't women making their presence felt at the senior managerial levels and top posts of public sector units?
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Marriage is still the principal determinant of women's social position. Career choices are influenced by decisions about marriage, parenthood and responsibility in home making and expected social responsibilities.
PHOTO: PARTH SANYAL
Bias in the workplace?: Despite large numbers in the workforce, women are rarely seen at higher levels of any organisation.
IT is one of the most intriguing questions for those who study issues of women at the workplace. And even for the observant layman. Why are women near invisible in the upper echelons at India's public-sector units (PSUs)? It is now almost cliché to talk of women having stormed every male bastion given their entry into and success in virtually every field of human endeavour.
Yet, the top jobs in PSUs elude them. Of course, worldwide, women are still not filling up the boardrooms and CEO chairs. Globally, women comprise only 10 per cent of senior managers in Fortune 500 companies, less than four per cent are in the uppermost ranks of CEO, president, executive vice-president and COO and less than three per cent of them are top corporate earners.
In India too the number of women in senior management in private companies is rising with prominent examples being Naina Lal Kidwai (HSBC) and Lalita Gupte, Kalpana Morparia, Chandana Kochhar, all from (ICICI Bank), Hema Ravichandran (former Infosyian).
Stuck in the middle
Women comprised 5.68 per cent of the total workforce of PSUs as on March 31, 2001, up from four percent in March 1991. Though exact statistics are not available, women in PSUs head not even a handful of companies.
Between 20,905 women managers and 250 top jobs, only one or two have currently made it to the top. The rest are stuck at the lower and middle levels of the managerial hierarchy.
So, what are the reasons? Is it a flaw in the selection process itself? Has the PSEB selection process failed to spot and select women who display managerial and leadership skills? Or is there a firm glass ceiling at the workplace preventing talented women from moving upwards once they reach a certain level? Why are women, at the top, still rare in the PSUs?
As management trainer, I have often heard men speak of women employees' competency in their companies, how they find women better than men, but when it comes to occupying senior positions why is it that the same competent women are not selected for senior jobs?
We decided to ask the women themselves to get first-hand information. The reasons for this poor showing of women are numerous, including some that are self-imposed.
Marriage is still the principal determinant of women's social position. Career choices are influenced by decisions about marriage, parenthood and responsibility in home making and expected social responsibilities.
Professional role expectations are not congruent with the feminine role expectations, as a result women with a demanding job, face role overload and conflict. Women in general allocate more time to the household, often in a critical period of their career. They shoulder majority of household and childcare responsibilities. After the first child, things become more difficult, and focus shifts. This becomes a major constraint in more productive years of woman's life (between 25 to 40 years) when she has to build her career.
Gender bias is perhaps more obvious right from the time of recruitment. But in 2001 in the public sector for every 1000 men there were only 176 women working in the organised sector. The respective figure in the private sector was better at 319.
Hence to a great degree extremely low representation of women at the top can be explained by this gender bias in employment. There are as many as 10,00,000women aspiring for jobs. Gender bias is also seen in the assignments women get, the travel opportunities provided to them and to some extent in promotions.
Women also tend to be clustered at the lower levels of management, leaving them with fewer influential contacts with whom to network for opportunities. Women generally prefer to spend their evenings with their children rather than network.
As one executive said: "It is hard for women to hang out with their male colleagues after work." Another manager said, "I find networking a serious problem, without my family being concerned and some tongues wagging."
Work-life balance is only one aspect of the whole issue. Most important seemed to be the choice they make in life and their ability to cope with family and social pressures that decide whether they rise above the ordinary or quit work.
There is a lack of that burning desire to rise to the top and occupy the CEO's chair. Many women seem to be satisfied with a routine nine to five job.
Many women work to support family with an additional income. Besides, in many families, women's income is still considered secondary to that of her husband. One respondent said, "Women do not think earning the daily bread is their responsibility."
Lack of ambition to learn or excel is another factor. Most women in lower and middle management are reluctant to travel, attend seminars/conferences offering an excuse of family compulsions.
This creates a negative impression and impacts other women too.
Self-doubt further harms their prospects. One lady, a GM in an oil company, believes that there are less number of women at the senior management level not because of discrimination, but because women do not avail the opportunities provided to them.
Women use the "I am a woman" to get away and take the easy way out. Increasingly, when women bump against glass ceiling or walls, they simply leave.
Ranjana Kumar, CMD, NABARD, says, "Opportunities are the same for men and women. We should be able to take up the challenge and deliver. There is no other way. At the end of the day, nothing succeeds like success."
Differences
While these constraints could be common to working women whether in public or private sectors, what differentiates the two? First, women are not seen in top positions in the public sector because few have responsibility for revenue generation — the jobs that lead to the top. The point of interest here is, of the 20,000 plus women managers in PSUs, how many have responsibility for profit and loss?
Although, exact numbers are not available, more women are in staff jobs and much less in positions where they are accountable for revenue generation. Women lack significant general management and line experience, which is one of the most important barriers for their advancement to the top.
Second, while networking is important, it is equally critical, if not more especially in PSUs, for women to be politically savvy. Most top jobs in PSUs are political appointments and women tend to lose out, as they are not politically savvy.
"It requires a lot of grit and determination to fight through political circles, the system, top bosses and manoeuvre to the top, and at the end of the day is it worth it?" said one executive.
Third, what differentiates private and public sectors is the approach of the management. The private sector seems to be more professional and less bureaucratic leading to the subsequent increase of women in top positions. Where the private sector is inching toward gender-sensitive selection procedures, the PSEB currently doesn't have a single woman member. Given the absence of an enabling set-up, biases are firmly entrenched within the institutional framework as policies. Progress is too little and too slow.
Women in corporate India are aware of the constraints they work under and are slowly but surely trying to make the best of the bargain. And when they do reach the managerial level, they bring with them both the silver lining and the dark clouds. But they blossom, if they are allowed to, despite all the obstacles, which are both societal and perceptual but mainly self-imposed.
The writer is an Associate Professor, Centre for Organisation Development, Hyderabad.
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