While I am writing this, one of my school friends, Aarti reminded me of my incident in class 7th. When teacher asked me, what does my mother do? Instead of saying Housewife, I said, she does nothing. It was my ignorance and innocence and I didn’t mean what I said, but that line struck chords with my classmate. After 15 years she reminded on this incident that how she decided to be a working woman.
I saw this interview of Chanda kochhar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanda_Kochhar (next CEO of ICICI Bank, India’s largest private sector bank) and Naina lal kidwai, Head of HSBC, India. This show on NDTV celebrates Chanda's achievements and explores answers to the question whether glass ceiling in corporate world still exists. It was very interesting with way Chanda responded that women employees should not expect favors from employers and do whatever it takes to complete the tasks assigned to them.
I have always seen that women are always dealt in special ways in teams and organizations. In Infosys, women constitute 40% of staff. This is a huge number and senior management is pushing hard to bring this number to 50%.
I am fortunate to have worked with exceptional, hardworking and diligent women employees. I have always been very appreciative of women employees when they don't seek special considerations and do the job with same passion as their male counterparts would do but I have also seen women employees coming with expectation that their team mates and seniors would assign them with lighter workloads and that it's their right to be considered unequal in terms of work load and responsibilities. Many a times, peers and immediate team leaders are responsible for encouraging this kind of behavior. They treat women employees in special ways and become lenient in terms of work assignments. I have even some times seen them doing women team member’s tasks.
I have seen managers tend to oppose having women employees, as they associate them as under performer in case of firefighting or heavy workloads. They fear that they won't have sufficient reason to ask them from staying late although they can dictate male employees easily. In some cases, they are not left with any choice but to accept women employees in their teams. But what should mangers do when every 2nd employee is a woman? How do they mitigate project management risks in case their schedules go haywire and they are left with no other option but to work extra in already frozen schedule?
It’s important for both managers and women team members to learn lessons from Chanda's rise to highest position in ICICI Bank. Woman employees should live an active professional career. They should not lead a passive or supplementary earner in the family. There will always be pressure in life to manage work and family but an active career would give them confidence to balance both worlds.
Managers should build the atmosphere in their teams so that each member in the team is equally driven towards team goals and any wrong expectation on the part of male or female employees should be appropriately handled.
Let me know your thoughts and experiences when you have come across such situations in your teams.
