India Inc is all set to put in an extra effort to hire more women for leadership roles. Special mandates have been sent out to executive search firms to look for women candidates for top-level posts. While the number of women who enter the organised workforce is almost equal to their opposite gender, they drop out at mid to senior-levels, for various reasons including critical life stages like maternity.
Hunt Partners managing partner Suresh Raina said, “A multinational company recently gave us a mandate specifically to hire a diversity (female) candidate for CEO succession planning. The candidate has joined the said company and is slated to take over from the incumbent after a pre-defined period of grooming and transition. Even though the candidate pool still remains small, such mandates are increasing by the day.” Executive Access India MD Ronesh Puri said one-fourth of the searches the firm conducted in the last three-four months reveals a strong preference for women candidates for leadership posts as also boards. He said this was predominantly in the FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods), consumer durables, BFSI (banking, financial services, insurance) sectors and consulting space.
There are several companies that have designed programmes dedicated to mentor and groom women for leadership roles. Maersk has the 'Back2Work' programme, which is a pipeline into senior roles where the company has specifically hired women talent in earmarked roles like financial controller, business relationship manager for operations and IT project manager. Maersk Global Services Centre senior director (HR) Pratap G said, “In India, women constitute nearly half of the working age population, and we want to be able to access that talent pool, especially at leadership levels as one way to fulfil our goals. We have targets for women at leadership. However, we have consciously kept away from 'quota-based approach' for diversity and instead focus on inclusion levers to drive it.”
When asked if the company has given specific mandates to hiring agencies to look for the right-fit women candidates for leadership roles, he said, “We have given mandates for targeted searches in select roles for specific right-fit women leader profiles. Some such are currently under way. Such mandates were in our new digital capability centre, where the BI (business intelligence) practice and site leader role is headed by a woman, and functions like HR.”
