HerStory presents Women In Workforce Study - a survey on the state of women in India Inc

HerStory has always endeavoured to champion the stories and causes of women in the workplace.

The first-ever Women on A Mission Summit held on Wednesday at Bengaluru brought together women from different sectors to initiate conversations and dialogue around women in the workforce, and what can be done to attract and retain them.

Women In Workforce Study - A HerStory, a survey on the state of women in India Inc was launched on the sidelines of the Women on A Mission Summit 2019.

What do women in the workforce want in terms of policies? How can they be implemented?

And, more importantly, shouldn’t this be a sustained and continuous effort?

These were some of the questions we, at HerStory, set out to answer when we conducted this survey among a sample group of 120 working women from across the country, with the majority, or 80 percent, concentrated in Tier-I and Tier-II cities. These women represent women at different stages in their careers - junior, mid and senior levels - in various organisations across different industries.

This report includes our findings on the state of Indian women in the workforce today, and what they’re saying about how organisations can level the playing field for women, and enable more women to join and thrive in India Inc.

The survey found that women, whether in a Tier II city, or an urban metropolis, face similar challenges, but they unanimously agreed on their belief that more could be done to make the workplace more inclusive and diverse.

It threw up some interesting findings:

1. Women continue to be subjected to unconscious biases about their roles and capabilities at the workplace.
2. While superficial support exists, this does not percolate to deeper levels across the organisation.
3. Not enough is being done to assuage concerns around and create equality across workplaces.

Some of the key findings of the survey on the way forward were:

• Positive interventions to ensure an inclusive and harassment-free workplace
• Freedom from judgement and bias
• No fear of speaking up
• Not being judgemental about career breaks
• More mentorship and returnship programmes
• Consistent policy review and development to ensure an inclusive framework across all levels of the organisation
• Enhancing gender intelligence and sensitisation, especially towards the LGBTQI community
• Opportunities to enhance skills at work

The roadmap to diversity and inclusion cannot be short term; companies should look at long-term solutions to make diversity and inclusion initiatives work.

The Women In Workforce Study - A HerStory survey on the state of women in India Inc is available as a downloadable report here.

Let the conversations continue. It’s imperative to be heard for change to begin.