welcome to this edition of times techies friday plus plus i am sujit john and i have with me my colleague shilpa fudness the two of us will moderate this discussion that we are doing in partnership with netapp and legato we hope you and your families are staying safe and doing well india has a very high proportion of girls in stem education compared to even many developed countries that reflects in the employment in the indian tech industry as well women constitute more than 34 percent of the employees in the sector this is much higher than in the us canada australia it's much higher than in the rest of organized indian industry with multiple industry-wide and firm specific policies the indian i.t sector has created the confidence that tech jobs are safe and suitable for women yet we have a problem the bulk of the women are in the entry level and lower rungs there are very few in the middle and upper rounds the reasons are well known women drop out because of a variety of family reasons and do not return that impacts women at large research also shows that diversity is good for business that more women on boards and c-suites positively impacts profitability and return on equity today we are going to discuss why we need more women in middle and top management in the indian tech industry and what more needs to be done to bridge the gap to discuss that we have three seasoned professionals we have with the sangeeta gupta sangeetha is vice president chief strategy officer at nascom sangeetha joined nasscom right after her masters in economics from the delhi school of economics she's now been with nasscom for 31 years that's more than what i've been at times of india my mind is like 26 years uh sangita manages numerous major programs at nascom that focus on industry research outreach events communications and nascom's strategic goals welcome sanita we have with us nishira subashini staff vice president of hr at legato legato is the global capability center of u.s healthcare insurance company anthem as part of legato's leadership she focuses on building the company's culture talent and processes subhashini has over 25 years of hr experience in a variety of industries prior to legato she was with unisys northern transparent systems and phillips software welcome to marshmallow thank you thank you thank you and we have with us the director for engineering program at netapp she holds the global responsibility for leading netapp startup program called netapp accelerator she also plays a key role in driving enhanced collaboration between engineering and market facing functions across netapp in india she brings with her over 17 years of experience including in financial firms like goldman sachs and fidelity welcome mother imam thank you shilpa pleasure to be here thank you those of you viewing this can sending questions through the facebook comment box sujit and i will put them to madrumas vashni and sandeepa can we start with each of you giving us insights into your own careers you're all role models you have risen to the top what got you there who wants to start i can start as the veteran in this group um i think my career journey has been fairly straightforward like uh so the interview started with nasscom and have been with the organization um and i think it's been why i've stayed has been really because every moment has been a learning experience uh nascom has given me the opportunity to run numerous different programs learn from a different variety of leaders and continue to grow right so it's like sometimes many people come and ask me saying how long how can you stay so long in an organization i think i've skated because i've grown loved and you know enjoyed every moment of india i think during this journey there have been a number of learning experiences right from the time um you know when our president uh development at that time passed away and people just thought nascar would collapse um and that time i think the taking of the ownership of saying how do i work with the industry to keep nasscom going and taking it to the next level that to me was a moment of truth and still very relatively young in my career but but you know to be able to uh stand up to something that that one would never have imagined was one of those real moment of truth for me i think the second was really when um so methyl asked me to lead the whole research program at nascom and i said i'm not an islander's background i've done my economics i really don't understand it but but i think having mentors who uh understand what your capabilities are and push you into doing it i think that is that has really been my uh my journey and has come and in each of these i really learned that if you get an opportunity grabbing because you know you can build capabilities if you want to build around that invest in yourself but but the important part of it is to grab the opportunities that are coming with you rather than undermine your capabilities i was one of those who would always undermine myself i'm not good enough for this but but i think what i've learned over this journey is that if you invest in learning there is there is some there are things you can crack and then for many others you can go and ask people around you there's no harm in asking i don't know ai can you help me understand that so i would say those are those are really you know be my journey and the industry is now in such a phenomenal phase uh that you know the opportunities to do more still are very very high so so be passionate about your work enjoy what you do grab every learning opportunity and find the mentors that believe in you would be would be a short summary situation of my career no that's brilliant yeah grab opportunities uh there's a little disturbance it's not so i mean we can hear you clearly and all that but when you start speaking there's some kind of a noise that happens see if while the others are speaking whether you can address that otherwise it's clear it's not a problem uh who wants to go subhashini okay thank you that was really nice uh sangeetham so i started my journey as a management trainee and phillips post my masters in electronics i um phillips gave me the opportunity to move into the human resources function um from being an hardware and a software engineer i think since then to now uh it's it's been a great journey um some of it that sangeetha said absolutely resonates with me i think if you're able to pick a passionate area and if you see that one you are of course getting you know value-add by going into the job doing and learning from it and at the same time contributing back to your satisfaction that keeps you going on and that's really what i think kept me going through uh you know the last so many years of course different industries different [Music] cultures the american european and the indian culture and all that there's so much to learn there's so much to contribute which is primarily the thing i would think um has been the reason to sort of stay put um in on the personal side of course i have two daughters the other one are 21 and the younger one is at 12.
um i think um what is also important or what kept me going was you know the kind of support that i got all along right both my parents were medical professionals my mom was a working mother so a lot of learning from you know how she managed multiple things but uh you know the support the family provides and the support the organization uh provides through you know your leaders who work with you who mentor you who support you and the times that you think um should i just step back should i just take a break um you know all those you know role models both male and female i would say uh came in you know and helped at the right times so got lucky a little bit i would also say all through my career and uh yes of course the family support and of course you know you really want to also be doing and contributing and and i think human resources function has ample of opportunities to learn and contribute i think these are the basic things which which has helped me grow i would say support you got from your family and your organization oh maduraima yeah thanks i think uh you know the one word that would sum up my career is unconventional and uh let me share you know the story why i call it unconventional so i started out as an entrepreneur while i was uh doing my computer science undergrad degree and then i did my employees even earlier i think they wrote about you in time good in coding yes thanks for that yeah coding was my first love you know started in class eight i think and but uh you know after doing my mba from ima in 2003 i'm dating myself by sharing that but yes uh life changed i spent the next decade in the financial services industry as an investment analyst covering uh you know the banking sector covering the fmcg and all and then decided to step out of that industry and move back to the startup site and today i am with netapp you know one of the leading organizations in the cloud space heading their startup program right and during this time i've taken a couple of career breaks yes uh you know i've done a lot of stuff in my life i think and not kept a bucket list for later because you never know when you'll get a chance to do that and if you ask me you know how i did what i did i don't have an answer i think i took life as it came um if something interested me just took that leap of faith and uh you know that took that risk i would say of course it has suppression he said family support very important right from the early days uh to today till today right i mean it's that that has been one constant thing that i've been lucky enough to have and yes as uh you know i like to say i i'm a great believer in luck timing and destiny so somewhere that has played a part right yeah like sangeetha also said uh grabbed opportunities yeah uh so i i you know great stories uh all of you uh i mean i i really want to understand uh later on uh what are the things that will really help others in the profession but before that can we discuss this point about why it's important to have diversity yes women are like we said 34 of the indian tech industry yet in the middle and top management it's much lower why is it important that we have more women in these positions who wants to go first i can go for it right yeah see the the very fact that we need to have this discussion itself points that you know there is need uh that work needs to be done in this area right why do we need more women in technology because it's important to view in uh you know to factor in the views of 50 of the world's population given that tech industry is one of the main forces that will shape the future that is yet to come right we need women in uh in roles where they have the power of decision making so that we can overcome the biases that exist in ai you know gender pay issues whether we are talking about product design as you said there's research about driving financial performance where there is diversity in leadership bringing in multiple perspectives right all that is extremely important for the world's future if i have to say that right i don't know how many of you have uh read this book invisible women by uh you know caroline credo perez it is a great example of what goes wrong when we do not have adequate representation of women in decision-making roles in senior leadership roles right i i can go on and on but i'll just pause here can you give an anecdote where uh with more women crude are done better see i'll tell you um i i don't know if it's true or not but uh by my being the leader of netapp accelerator i was able to influence and create a program focused on women entrepreneurs because i had seen the need for that right i realized that's a gap that exists and we launched netapp accelerate her would somebody else have thought of it probably not taking away from that but having had that experience knowing what it takes having uh spoken to other women entrepreneurs and investors uh it just you know made it easier for me to bring out uh why the why of why we needed this program carved out okay okay who wants to go subhashini go ahead yeah i mean i think very well put first of all totally agree with you uh i also strongly believe that creating a diverse workforce at the decision-making level of our organization is really the next big leader in driving uh and holistic impact right not just for women but for the industry and the economy you know increasing women's participation in the middle of the senior management in the tech industry has multiple uh impacts first and foremost i think there is absolute need to create role models who will inspire the upcoming talent and reduce the dropout rates in the middle the careers of mid mid and the senior career segment um you know if you really look at most people maybe a few of us are lucky do not have role models at their home and it is important to have role models who are there up there for people to see and go on i think bridging the gap between the dna vision that the companies are making and and its realization at a ground level by overcoming some structural impediments and creating and nurturing a cult a nurturing culture is also extremely important to have uh you know women in the middle and the senior management given all that i think the fact is also that the tech industry is really the driving uh you know industry from a transformation perspective which is happening across all other industries so having women in the higher segment as touch points and ambassadors of change will drive cross pollination of dna to other industries so there's a huge impact that the tech industry can create in other industries and of course that will have an impact to the economy from a macro economic perspective as well i do think that you know we have gone on and on about reaping benefits through demographic dividends particularly from an age point of view but i think time has come for us to also leverage the uh you know demographic driven from a gender perspective which i think could probably be uh really the silver bullet right to reach the 5 trillion gdp goal that you know our nation has said to us so i think it's got larger impact across multiple segments women industry and economy and hence it is a need uh and it's time that we really take it to a very very important level to strategize and implement so let's leave the dividend not just of age but also of gender women and there's a lot that the tech industry can do to influence other industries is what you're saying if there's more yeah okay so sebastian raised some great points so i won't repeat them but i think just the added factor is the importance of empathetic leadership um i think the last 18 20 months have taught us that uh you know there is a new paradigm for leadership that is needed uh you have to understand you know employees and their issues and you know what they are going through and having more women at senior levels middle senior is is the right way to build that empathetic leadership in the organization apart from the fact that the women are you know the buyers they will bring in diversity of decision making etcetera so i'm not i'm not repeating the points i think the importance of empathetic leadership and culture that subashri talked about which is becoming so important as we move to this hybrid workforce so as a tech industry we've done very well with this 30 34 35 percent women workforce i think our next goal has to be about saying what can we do at middle and senior management levels because now we've had for the last five seven years this one third proportion of women joining the workforce so in the past this argument used to be you know if your base point of starting is eight ten percent how can you have proportionality as you move up but now that you know we have a foundation set up with the right initiatives you can you know change some of these ratios that we are all working towards going forward okay empathy i just want to understand you think women tend to be more empathetic than men i definitely think so yeah you can you can see it in practice i see it in practice as a organization we have a number of senior women leaders now at nasscom including in our executive council the quality of decision discussions are very different from what we would have had in the past also right so i'm seeing this in practice in in my own organization okay okay great uh this 34 has that been moving up uh it's been moving up consistently so it used to be a decade back we were probably at 23 24 so it's you know so much more now so and you know like you rightly said the entry level at the at the women in stem is probably a 49 50 percent already so the basis is now i think now it is about like we said how do you retain these women so you don't lose them as they move up the career ladder okay okay yeah subashi and madram are coming to you how are companies like yours growing the funnel at the mid and you know senior leadership levels uh if you can talk about some of the structured interventions in place and how we are fostering the culture of inclusion who wants to go go ahead yeah no i think that's a great question um because i think as senior leaders it's extremely important to be the influencer there as well um you know i think sangeeta talked about how uh you know it's gone gone from about 23 to 34 i mean if i look at legato myself at this point we are 37 from a diversity perspective and it manages an above level at 30 percent and at sea leadership level we are at 27 very very conscious efforts you know in terms of trying to bring in um you know people um you know from a diversity women diversity perspective of course you know i think i'm limiting it to women diversity we definitely want to look beyond that pwd and all of this but you know it's not the topic of relevance today uh you know few things as most try to do uh we are definitely trying to do right at an entry level itself can we bring in can we make sure that we look at sensitizing our interviewing panel making sure that there's conscious effort in the funnel itself all the way from we looking at you know every position to have at least you know some percentage of women applicants and reviewing it i think there is definitely a lot of rigor that we have put in in the last uh uh you know couple of years and of course legato is in existence the last few years and we have grown to the size what we are but there is you know clear efforts there and we see that those efforts do benefit us you know when you are reviewing something when there are matrices that you sort of look at and there is soft target so to say there is definitely some needle the second is you know not just about bringing them in after you bring them in you have the right policies you really look at uh making sure that the different life stages that a woman goes through we are accommodating those interests and sensitizing our leaders to understand those i mean we have to be mindful to the fact that i talked about it a while ago one is most women are first-time working mothers so they need lot of guidance and support so can we provide them with mentors or sort of being there done that who talk to them at the moment that they are really really at their low and they want to take a step back then they intervene and say hey you know you don't need to be a super woman everybody has gone through this here are the three four things that you do and figure it out and then giving some flexibility i think flexibility goes a long way in my own personal life has been i talked about some of the leaders uh you know male leaders uh women leaders who have all helped me you you ask for help so we do insistence women sometimes have this tendency of not really going out and asking for help at the time that's required so we did we do call out the please ask for help uh you never know you know in what form where help comes from so creating channels to support through mentorship asking help talking about the policies sensitizing our leaders and some of these needs and you know having very clear agenda to drive that and having some of the senior women leaders in the forefront of these right i mean all of us who are missing a leadership level to talk about it we also uh try and make it at a ground level what are some of the things that we can do for example we know that the most difficult you know a space in your career is when you are pregnant and you are looking for childbirth and and post-face that right so can we provide some support and help at that phase and post that uh and those are the things that really makes a difference you know at a grassroot level so um and all the way taking it to um you know ensuring that uh you know the women leaders come together and support you know uh uh and through policies and structures and nurturing and you know the empathy and and the emotional connect that they provide i think those are all uh you know initiatives in different forms of course we have a lot of different names we call it as milan we call it as this we call it as that but i think it's fundamentally looking at the end-to-end life cycle of women and employee and relating it and understanding the moments that matter to them and really making sure that those moments that matter are the ones where we try and extend our health and support through structural uh you know and policy uh based interventions so that's the high level but i will leave it for madhu to also talk about it i'm muted sorry if amongst all these if you have to identify one or two that made the most impact what would is there something like that i think women leaders as role models and mentors because this whole concept of and that comes back to this point as well the whole concept of you don't need to be a super woman to really be doing everything you know all the ordinary women like us have come up you just have to have a few things right and what are those few things and have a little bit patience and be patient with yourself set your expectations for yourself also right i think those really go a long way because one conversation uh you know with a woman leader has i myself know that quite a few people who talk to me when they were at difficult times have sort of sailed through and they've come back after a few years saying that hey that conversation helped me i think that is really the most impactful one right uh that empathy that connect and the uh you know coaching and support in a very timely manner that's the most impactful one okay okay yeah i i think uh you know subhashani mentioned all the great stuff that is being done at organizations and most of it holds true for netapp as well uh we we look at uh getting more women in the workforce right at the early stages and apart from you know the standard hr things that are done which is you know reach out to colleges have a specific focused messaging for the women candidates and that i think one thing which i really uh love about netapp is the fact that we have a program which sponsors girls in engineering at the top government colleges across india and it's it's a you know sizeable number of uh women who are getting that access to that program and uh on a periodic basis the netapp leaders go and coach and mentor those uh girls right we've been doing it online right now uh but when it was when were the days where we were all going to office they would get a chance to come and spend a day at the netapp campus right just to see what ca or what their future can hold right and i think that that's a great initiative i myself had a chance to go and uh you know take a session for these uh girls in engineering and i came back so enthused and energized you know just seeing the uh enthusiasm that they brought so it works both ways right we uh we also have uh hackathons that are done just for women to ensure that you know we attract the right kind of talent and as subhashani said right it's not just attracting the right talent it's also retaining them and nurturing them so a lot is being done in that area uh we have uh one thing i really liked was we had something called unconscious bias training that all leaders have to go through compulsory and i i think i'm a champion of diversity but after undergoing that training i realize there's so much i have also learned right so there's always scope for all of us to learn and uh that that really makes people leaders think about you know how they are going to bring in diversity in their teams then of course you know we have a women in tech program that runs across the globe at netapp and we have a very vibrant india chapter uh as part of that we provide the idea is to provide a safe space where women can come together and share their challenges and learn from others journey right that that i think is very powerful something that makes a lot of difference uh it is of course in their uh you know professional lives personal life and simple things like they get together and share ideas around coding if they're facing a challenge it's just a space to come together and build that community and uh as you know sangeeta and subhashini earlier said the power of networks seeing role models that that's what it develops right it becomes very visible that there are women who have been able to you know achieve what they wanted and so can you that's a very powerful message that is needed at the early stage because you know for women uh self-doubt comes more easily than others i think so it's more important that they get to see role models more than the males right because we are lesser in numbers so it's harder to find us but yeah okay uh i i know you also stress the role model thing but i just want to ask uh sensitive men men have you seen your the men in your organization changing with all the programs addressed to them are you brutally telling them these are your biases and stuff yeah i mean definitely i do think that uh you know i do have to say first of all a lot of women men have been empathetic and understanding otherwise i would not be here where i am because if you're talking about majority of men being in the industry to whatever percentage we have come without the support of what we have come um but you know having said that like i mentioned earlier like how i said most of us are first-time working mothers barring a few of us where we don't have role models and a small push comes then we tend to take the backseat this is why i should not have taken this opportunity i should have concentrated more on my family and so on and so forth uh you know there are also men that we need to understand that they have also not seen role models right i mean they have also not seen the mothers the sisters are working and so they do not know what is it for for an employee to go through this so they also need sensitization they also need you know some understanding of it and the more we educate the the better it is i mean i can confidently say at least in my own life uh my husband uh you know definitely would know the pain points that a woman goes through with two children with you know managing between family and priorities at office and i'm sure you know uh he is he will be empathetic to uh people around uh under him around him above him right i mean and that goes uh that has its own domino's effect and there is no doubt from that yeah tell us i mean you've seen you have an overview of the entire industry you've seen many a number of companies taking these doing these kind of programs what is your sense which what are the most impactful programs i i think you know great points raised by both the other panelists uh and i think as nascom our focus has been really to take the best of examples that companies like netapp legato and others are running and take them to the best to the wider section of nascar membership you know the industry is has a very long tail so you know what can we learn from what legato has done what in netapp has done what xyz companies have done and take the best of those practices to the large base of nascom members and we started that very early on with the nascom diversity awards that we probably started a decade back i think the initial years of those awards were just about some of the practices that were discussed right how do you uh you know what are the flexibility that you can provide to women at different stages of their workforce what kind of mentorship models can be built and that has really helped not just the large or multinational companies but a large section of even indian companies to think holistically about diversity so clearly uh the peer learning that we've been able to drive through these programs has been very very helpful i think if you look now to the specific topic that we are discussing the top things that you know as nasscom we are debating that we should focus on one is clearly metrics right if you don't measure you don't know so we started measuring the 34 right and we we said we have a goal we know what to do about it i think the first part for us is really to go out and start tracking what is this metrics for women at middle and senior management and then where do we want to go from there so i think to me that is one more very important objective that we all focus on companies are already doing it at nascom it'll be our job to aggregate and see where where do we stand i think the second and important focus that nasscom is driving is the part that madhurima spoke about that as all these technologies are coming in how do you ensure women don't get left behind right so specific programs for ensuring more women in tech and their career ladders making sure they are getting the right inputs skilling programs that are needed to ensure they can you know get updated with the newer technologies as part of the upscaling program so so i think you know that would be my second uh ask i think third continues to be repeating what sebastian he said is role models right the more role models that we have the more the stories are told uh that will be the inspiration for many more women leaders and that we have at least as nascom i've really seen that you know from an industry where we would have two or three women leaders today we have a good pool of many more women cxos maybe more in multinational companies but we still have a large pool of women cxos who are role models uh for the industry so i i would prioritize those three but my top one would be really measure the metrics to know where you are okay measure companies are also all doing it a lot of companies are going to do that companies are willing to are doing it how many are willing to share it would be the important one so you know share it and build out an industry uh metrics around benchmarks around that is what we would look to do i am not necessarily going to publish what xyz company is doing right so okay yeah i post the black lives matter we've seen um an increase in disclosures under gender and inclusion right if you look at for instance intel as a part of the global 2030 rise program they said that we're going to have a representation of 40 percent in you know senior leadership roles and if you look at adobe they said that they've introduced a concept called opportunity parity that examines fairness and promotions across horizontal movements and demographic groups so um if you can help us understand do you think a company setting a target and chasing them will have more visible leaders at the top and it'll also help leaders make themselves more accountable to those gender and inclusion uh goals right yeah i think it builds on the question and if i can go first by on the you know having the metrics and measuring them right so one is just measuring what is the current state but if you don't set goals for where you want to be and that means everything from the points that were raised on how many women you have at the entry level how many promotions are happening uh issues around gender pay parity uh you know around inclusion broader than just gender diversity these shifts will not happen and and today i think you're right that even in a cxo context many of them men or women have this as their kra right to drive this participation and make sure that these changes are happening more systematically than they have happened organically in the past would you like to add that yeah just just to say right um as sankita said earlier we should we need to measure so that we know what's going on uh in corporate world we say what gets measured gets done so we have to have a goal uh only then we'll move towards it and i think increased transparency also you know builds that pressure to deliver right if extra effort is required it is put in because that's something very visible and today i think you know the customers are savvy enough that uh they don't just look at one aspect of a company when they are making the buying decision they look at multiple aspects right whether it's around sustainability whether it's around diversity whatever you know multiple facets like last year at uh davos you know goldman sachs announced that they will uh not take a company in europe and us to ipo if it did not have a diverse or a woman uh director right that's a big in a bold statement to make and because they made that statement because it's so visible i think it will create a much bigger impact than it if it was just something that was agreed upon and not being held accountable to it i think well said i mean i'm not going to add you know more on the mattresses i think there is definitely a need to look at matrices um and also do surveys right i mean even within our own organization the culture and the dna is always you know do have a part in terms of the women diversity and how people feel and how you know uh they understand about the um sensitivities and things like that which gives us an understanding of um what more should we do and i think the simple fact that uh all of us are running towards this target of delivering something to our clients uh we don't want to miss out on that some of these elements and if we don't have a measurement there is a tendency for us to sort of run towards it without looking at some of these things right and that's what these matrices do i mean we have it all the way from you know the funnel coming in from a candidate point of view to the time that people exit and of course we have what we call it as the dni uh metric talent dashboard uh which we keep looking at it definitely helps us to intervene at the right time or the right point and while we are running towards a target having some of these things in mind um is will will also help i know when i say you know delivery targets some of these things will be very important to be talked about and if you don't have that as soft targets have targets whatever way we call it as and review it it doesn't get happened so it is definitely very important i would think well what about returnship programs um how successful have they been what is the model that works who wants to is there sangeeta what have you heard so far about returnship programs so um i've heard good examples of you know internship programs where you've had you know women who were out of their careers for eight ten years came back and and have you know really been successful i've also heard not so good stories uh sujit where women struggled after coming back their peers had moved up at much higher positions they were you know they were somehow not being able to relate to to what was happening so um but i think the current hybrid work environment potentially offers a new lease of life to the internship program because you are not going to expect everybody to be at the same kind of business models that they were doing today you can have a flexi working model of four six hours a day if you want to achieve that you can do a totally remote model uh plus the online skilling abilities the ability to connect better with the organization it's much more democratized right earlier there was always a divide between people who were every day in office versus people who potentially were on a flexi model right so i would i personally feel that this is the time and you know the industry desperately needs the right talent so every company is talking about internship programs and how do you accelerate that so uh it is it is the time to reinvent that return ship model as i see it uh and we are seeing a lot of companies putting focus on it including wanting to work with nascom to say how do we build out something at an industry-wide level okay and you sense that companies will move towards treating their remote employees as equally as somebody in the office you have no choice right so i think if we go back to the pre-covered world then we've lost everything they've learned yeah true true all of you emphasize mentorship um and maduraima mentioned that you know women particularly have a lot of self-doubts and all that so mentorship i guess comes all the more is there some mentorship model that really i mean do you have a formal one where you tell women uh particularly um okay this was subhashini and madhuri how do you approach that do you tell them to find a mentor and work with them and all that or do you just leave it to them to decide so um so given that hybrid is a favorite word these days so i'd say the same we have a hybrid model we do have a structured program under the women in technology where we pair up mentors and mentees based on you know what the mentees are looking for to the best of our ability that's for a limited period of time but what i have seen working better is that informal mentoring that happens that is not forced upon or you know pairings done based on a third party's understanding right uh but it helps to have a structured program because it allows first-time mentees to overcome that uh fear of approaching someone to ask for help it allows them to open up and then once the once they've had experience of that and they realize how it benefits them and learns you know some of the things that don't work well as well you know they they feel more confident about approaching the other leaders within and outside the organization as mentors and in my case right i i've been very fortunate to have uh some really uh you know very clear uh mentors in the sense that they've helped me develop my clarity of thought right and then did i think of them as mentors no they were just someone i would reach out to for advice whenever i had some doubt or wanted to uh you know talk about it to someone and and now we learn that the word is mentor but that that's been there since uh you know early days so i would say that uh the informal mentoring uh is more longer term it's more stronger but the structured programs that we have allow people to experience mentoring in the first place okay sebastian yeah yeah no i think uh again um very well put but let me just talk you know a couple of points from what um madhurima talked about as well right one is definitely organizations have to give a platform for women to come together and have some open conversations and to know each other because we are not really very good with networking going out and doing all these things because your tendency is that okay i finished my job you know here are my kids waiting at home i let me there's already a guilt that i have last uh the time of eight nine hours they must be missing whether they're missing me or not and you tend to go back and that's the best way but to have you know structured platforms within the ten hours nine hours they work helps them to have a guilt-free conversation first of all and that's the first trigger point right and the second is you know uh in the last 20 years you know number of dna initiatives have run uh i've seen some to be successful some not to be successful but the point in this particular mentoring and coaching is a women have to relate to the other women i mean we have had some successful women from other countries of course you know i was in the past leading multiple across multiple geographies and we have some great role models let's say in the east or the west uh but you know people tend to sort of relate to somebody uh who they know that would have gone through a similar circumstance and that's when they really open up and the real uh you know the rubber meets the road at that point right which is you know i can relate to madhuriman i can talk to her and i'm going through something and she seems to be somebody that i can talk to that has to be the bonding that happens informally between the two um and that is where these sessions which makes them know oh i know sangeeta i talked to i know a smash and i can talk to our mother i can talk to so that much the organizations must do a platform a space for people to come together after that it's about who you relate with and who you relate to and how you take it forward from there okay okay there's some questions yeah we have some audience questions this one is from what challenges are faced by women in management i mean um [Music] i think there is no in my mind and this is purely my personal uh there is nothing specific that i would call it as gender and i will come there are certain things which are specific which is more contextual but i mean management anything everything which is challenging in the current context with given the pace and given everything i think every challenge is common to both men and women but the additional challenge could potentially be uh some of the contexts that women come from like what i said we really want to be a part of uh you know major decision makings at home for our kids uh you know as a wife as a mother as a you know um sister-in-law whatever it is right and also the uh you know the challenges and the opportunities that come in the organization so how do we really switch between these two emotionally physically otherwise is is something that because we have a larger so to say uh map that we draw around ourselves right and we are not just containing to so that could be a potential challenge where you are struggling with priorities of home and office at the same time struggling with some of the pain points at both the places so that could have an impact on the long hours that you work and also you know the reality uh you know could be that there are certain you know naturally if you are not somebody who is uh is able to make a very strong uh case in point and then you tend to sort of take a little bit softer space when you know that there are too many people talking about it and i think that's more in our minds than uh you know the people around us uh you know you could absolutely you know wise and say you know hey this is what it is this is how you feel and not get bound by what do you what people would think or other ways but again that's nothing to do with gender but there is a tendency a little bit that you could take a little bit you know get easily pushed back okay i'll take a softer approach to this so those are some of the things that naturally are uh you know a part of women's nature and hence it could be but otherwise i think you know the challenges are one of the same i mean everybody is trying to go to the top everybody is trying to do the right things and there are too many people trying to do that hence there is going to be the competition and the best will win right i mean another am i smiling so i'm going to give it to her to talk about it a little bit as well yeah i just wanted to agree with you before that and i totally agree at least my wife she has to think of those three i don't think about it but my wife has to think about those three meals that needs to be prepared for the day he uh i i don't think about my kids homework at all but my wife thinks that's simple she has to be involved in that so i perfectly understand where you're coming from go ahead yeah so uh so you know i i will uh slightly uh you know like to differ from your sabashani i think women do face more challenges in management roles compared to males right and i'll tell you why so first is relating back to what we have all been discussing right a lack of role models which means there are lesser women when you are in that room probably many times you'll end up being the only woman right and you will have to speak louder to make yourself heard right uh so that's i think one of the very stark challenges that come up and when you are new in that group right when you are a newly promoted manager that's it and you said you know with uh while women have become more conscious and uh you know career oriented men haven't seen many role models so they also take a while to accept they also you know take that time that you're part of that group you have a seat at the table and they need to listen to you right and one thing which i have observed personally and also i have read a lot of research around it is that women are often held to higher performance standards compared to men and uh you know that that means that they have to work doubly hard at office in addition to you know all that you shared uh subhashini that they also have to take care of things at home and work doubly hard at all so it makes it slightly difficult plus as you go higher up the ladder the stakes get higher uh which means that you know the criticism that you would face or the judgment that you would face tends to be sometimes not in all organizations but sometimes it tends to be harsher for women right so how do you solve for that uh you know we've all discussed that have more women in the room have more women part of the group so that you don't stand out uh you know so that you don't get labeled as aggressive when you are just being assertive right so i think that's one thing and also you know network uh you it it takes a little bit of time to build that uh respect to build to command that uh you know uh respect in that group that yes you have a voice and you have as logical as them you have equal decision making powers and steer the group in the direction that you want yeah i'll pause i can go on for this but yeah that was a good points uh sangeetha you want to add to that so i i tend to agree with both you know both the different points of view race right i think uh you know when you are at a management level the challenges from a business perspective can be the same for men and women so i don't think those are any different but you know the obligations of home and how you're wired of that doesn't change but i think at the same time uh you know the the importance of having to prove yourself and maybe it's what women bring upon themselves right may not be to the point mathurima raised it's not maybe something that others are asking you to do but we are we tend to uh you know focus more on saying am i doing enough am i performing enough i haven't finished this task i need to get out and do everything you know at the time that it's given so i think in some ways the burden of expectations is is what we tend to carry and you know that can be a challenge but it can also be an opportunity right to do better no true truth so there's a related question and it's asking about uh men with respect to working women is from arjun kumar asking with respect to working women what should men at work places and at homes be mindful of so that they don't end up causing problems everything kumar i would say everything i mean you know where do we start and where do we end i think the very fact that you're asking this question means that the first the first step towards any change is getting becoming sensitive to that i think you're already there right um hey you know i think sujit spoke very beautifully i mean i don't think about i mean kids are kids for both her you know husband and wife but why is it that i don't think about their food but you know my wife is already thinking about it uh maybe we put over uh too much of expectations on ourselves which is something that we need to change but the very fact that you can be you can be somebody who um you know women around you can speak their mind and ask for help that is the little bit that i would think that every man can do all they have to do is to be that empathetic person where i can i feel that i can talk to you and tell you right that solves all kinds of problems uh where i feel that most of my leaders who have been my mentors and many male mentors right i've had where people who were approachable who i could talk to very openly about a problem uh that is the uh you know effect that it can have so just being open just being sensitive just giving the time to be uh to somebody who wants to talk to you and somebody feels that hey i can go and talk to kumar that's all you need to do everything else will automatically fall in place anybody wants to add to that no i think subhashani put it beautifully right uh just do what you can accept them as they are right don't try to change them and uh be there when somebody asks for help uh you know the word that's going around these days the formal world is male allies so just display that uh allyship and stand with them yeah and you can do it at home do it for you know women uh at home do it for your daughters nieces wives mothers grandmothers do it for your colleagues at work and uh you've made a massive change i would say just doing it even in your small circle yeah and like you said i wanna and women should also ask i mean i sometimes wish my wife would just tell me do this half the time she expects me to think about it and all that but that's i want to probably rant i would happily do it if she were to tell me but it just doesn't sometimes come to my mind okay i must do this that's how we admire differently i must say that i think we will set expectations for each other very well if we read that book and know that we are wired differently and let's accept that fact and see that both uh you know can be very even leveraged for the benefit of both that's all that's required i think uh and a personal and a professional at a macro economic level i would say no absolutely you know on on a lighter note uh what i have seen is that given uh the corvette situation given that many men had to work from home uh at least in india a lot of them realized how much work the women have to do at talk they didn't even realize what was being done right so very very true i mean i'm telling you that what would you say did it for all of us so i realized i mean just to have those three meals a day for the family i mean that requires thought preparation all of that not easy i mean every day every single day we have this question from one of our viewers how do you identify a good mentor it's already been answered by that you know companies have to have a two-pronged strategy one is obviously a formal mentoring platform where you know at least for the first timers there is a structured process to identify mentors and mentors and after that it is really the network effect that takes into place so you know just to take an example of you know nascom events we would always wonder you know does a diversity event add any value but when we spoke to the participants they were like multiple things i realized one is the issues i'm traveling with are not my own two is there are many more role model women that i can go and talk to that you know that are maybe not in my own network but i'm able to go and connect with them so i think the whole way of having both formal and informal uh you know processes is what is needed to drive uh mentorship but uh yeah i think there's to be good commitment and as sebastian he said there should be the uh you know the understanding of each other is very critical for mentorship to work okay all of you have some great crushes uh how important are those i mean i've seen some of the crashes my mind blowing some of the kinds that you are setting up now that how much difference does that make i mean it's made a huge difference to me i can tell you from my personal experience my first daughter um you know we did have i think the first few years of your motherhood uh is a tremendous pressure when of course you know you're also having your own physical uh weakness you're still not up to it you know after delivery and second is you know you want to be back to your office and and your own loans your own self love then all the time being around with the you know managing the baby and but you also want your baby is your life you want your baby to be safe and nice so you're going through too many things and a good facility can really make wonders right i mean you are really off that part between that nine and five or whatever time you take um i think it definitely you know whatever you may have you can have your relatives your mother you know everybody needs a break everybody needs rest and they have been there done that and we are asking them to again do it on our behalf there is a little bit of guilt there are we really being fair there so i think uh you know a good facility a facility which gives you the comfort that you're leaving the kid with the safe hands and you can go back and pick is a very very important factor for you to focus in your job uh it's not about the number of hearts but the hours that you put in are you doing your best in that right whatever you do are you present there at that point in time that makes the difference to the output right whether it is the quality time with the kid or otherwise so in my mind it played a very very important role i will continue to say that a lot of women have come back and said that's really made a lot of difference to their career i'm sure yeah so we are almost out of time uh almost five o'clock uh last closing remarks from each of you one message each for men and women sangeeta you want to go i'll take the last one this time so okay subhashini yeah of course i would say that first of all um stick to what you're very passionate about because even if there is a small push then you will not come back to work if that's not something that you enjoy doing so pick up something that you're passionate about and uh stay confident uh you know ask for help um whatever that could be at whatever point in time we have a tendency now to ask for help and set the expectations around you i think that's very important around you on yourself as well it's okay to let go of something it's okay to be on on a break for some time it's okay for you to not do it at that time i think forget forget it forgive about it and then move on and be flexible and kind of yourself i think that's all i would say that's required uh you know as a small piece of invoice that i probably would have followed mother imam yeah i would say the same you know have self belief have some self love and if you can find someone who who can be there for you to push you when times are tough right when life is not treating you fairly you need someone who will bring back that joy of living that joy of working and doing whatever you're capable of so find that person and uh you know whenever there are self-doubts this is especially for the women in tech right remember that the world's first programmer was a woman lady ada lovelace it was not charles savage right it was lady ada lovelace of her you know rear admiral uh grace hopper she she is like you know very well known in the tech circle so think of those uh women and countless others they could do it you could do it too and to the men i would just like to say you know be mindful uh if you are mindful if you're thinking about you know helping the women around you you'll definitely find an opportunity so just act on that great no i think um you know both the panelists have covered what individuals want so maybe i'll just put it at an organization level that don't just think about diversity as a trophy as a media talking point right it is a it is a business ethos it's what will drive your company to the next stage of growth or next stage of evolution so i would say think of it like that and not just a talking point that some companies may tend to do no absolutely as one of you earlier said all kind of biases will emerge even in ai there will be biases if you don't correct all of these inequalities yeah absolutely so a great discussion um thank you so much to you sangeeta subhashini madhyama hope to have you again we'll see uh all kinds of a lot of programs happening so i guess we'll um we'll have a lot of to discuss about which ones are working well which ones are not uh so thanks again from all of us thank you thank you thank you bye
2022-05-31