About half of India’s banking assets are under the control of women, economist Ajit Ranade had said last year when India’s biggest bank got its first women chief. This is a good enough reason for the financial sector to celebrate Women’s Day.
In a country where gender biases against women are rampant, India’s top banks are headed by women — State Bank of India by Arundhati Bhattacharya as Chairperson and Managing Director, ICICI Bank by Chanda Kochhar, Axis Bank by Shikha Sharma, Bank of India by Vijaylakshmi Iyer and Allahabad Bank by Shubhalakshmi Panse.
In November last year, India opened its first all-women bank Bhartiya Mahila Bank headed by Usha Ananthasubramanian.
Notwithstanding these exceptions, the number of women in the workplace has remained low. In an effort to increase gender diversity and employ more women, banks such as SBI, ICICI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank are making their workplaces more women-friendly.
At ICICI Bank, women employees number about 17,000 and constitute 25 per cent of the workforce. Last year the bank initiated a series of measures for its women employees, including self-defence training, travel monitoring for women working late hours and quick-reaction mobile vans to handle emergency situations.
The country’s largest bank State Bank of India also allowed its women’s workforce more flexibility by extending them two-year sabbatical leave for purposes such as children’s education and taking care of elderly parents/in-laws.
Kotak Mahindra Bank, in February, introduced an all-women’s Probationary Officers course. In the last three years, women in Kotak Bank have doubled to 18-20 per cent of the workforce from 9-10 per cent earlier, which the bank wants to increase to 30 per cent.
Mid-career level drop-outs
Women tend to drop out at mid-career level positions as their personal priorities shift and they find it difficult to balance organisations’ demands, career aspirations and family commitments.
Explaining the problems faced by women, K Ramkumar, Executive Director (and HR head) at ICICI Bank said last year, “India has very poor childcare and paediatric facilities, and unlike in the past, grandmothers do not want to baby-sit their daughter’s or son’s children.”
Moorthy Uppaluri, CEO at Randstad India and Sri Lanka said, “Despite various efforts to build gender diversity in the workplace, women form less than 5 per cent of the top management at the board level in corporate India, and only 50 per cent of the women who graduate from business schools enter the workforce.”
Further, the presence of ‘invisible glass ceilings’ at work, lack of proper guidance, prevalence of gender roles and stereotypes and the lukewarm attitude towards greater responsibilities are among other reasons for lower representation of women in top positions.
Kotak Bank’s President of Corporate and Investment Banking, Shanti Ekambaram, said society and the organisation should work together to prevent drop-outs on the journey from education to employment to marriage to motherhood to the second innings.
“There are highly educated women who are competent and skilled but feel they have lost 5-10 years of their career while raising kids. But their competence and skills are so strong that we can use them,” Ekambaram said.
The bank has launched a unique second innings programme to attract such women.
On gender biases, Ekambaram thinks women at times limit themselves. She says, “Sometimes women say they cannot manage too many things but it is all in the mind.” She says they are also contented and sometimes lack confidence. Her advice to her women colleagues — Be hungry for more.”