Companies are beginning to take note of the rising trend of working women in middle to senior positions leaving their plush careers to care for their children. With women dropping off the work force, gender balance is affected.
Smart organisations understand that gender balance is not just a matter of diversity, but a vital component of its economic well-being.
An increase in the percentage of women improves the performance of the company in terms of results, customer satisfaction, client retention rates and hence has an effect on all stakeholders.
According to a new country-specific study by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), India stands to gain a lot from bringing women back to work.
If 68 million more women were added to the non-farm labour force over the next decade, the overall gross domestic product (GDP) could be boosted by $700 billion in 2025.
Plugging the leaks
Upon studying their talent data to understand the choke points that cause attrition and gender imbalance, and how these gaps can be plugged, organisations have identified maternity and child care support as areas needing attention.
The outcome of these studies has lead to numerous organisations around the world placing high emphasis on offering quality maternity support and childcare services to their employees.
They are paving the way for working mothers to ease the process of getting back to work after childbirth and to help them establish work-life balance.
Mother-friendly workplaces
Companies can take a two-pronged approach when it comes to helping new mothers cope with trying to balance motherhood and a career.
On the one hand, they can institute programmes for easing the transition back into work after a maternity break.
Simultaneously, they also need to set up support systems at the workplace to deal with the new challenges the employee faces as a mother, through high quality maternity and child care.
To deal with the sense of guilt, insecurity and the feeling of being out of the loop during the maternity break, organisations can arrange internship programmes, back-to-work training, mentoring and re-skilling programmes for the returning employees. Gender sensitisation training for male employees is also critical. Ultimately, retraining the highly-skilled and experienced women is more beneficial to the organisation than rehiring and retraining new recruits, both in monetary terms as well as the time taken to bring new hires up to speed with what their job role requires.
According to a 2013 report titled ‘The Lasting Impact of Employer-Sponsored Childcare Centers’, offering childcare facilities is a major factor in employee retention. By providing high-quality, affordable and conveniently-located care, employers eliminate a significant source of worry, stress and distraction, and as a result benefit from engaged and committed employees who are willing and able to put in their best performance.
Organisations say providing childcare support to employees, whether through onsite daycare or subsidised near-site facilities, has helped them move towards achieving their gender diversity objectives.
Leave options and flexible work schedules, along with the ability to choose your timings and work-from-home are benefits that are welcomed by new parents everywhere.
Progressive organisations are even moving towards gender-agnostic leave policies -- though paternity and parental leaves that enable new fathers to also pitch in and share the load.Employers that want to go the extra mile when it comes to retaining women can provide the new mother with facilities that prioritise her health.
This includes post-pregnancy support, wellness programmes, mom-dad counseling, and infrastructure support in the form of fully-equipped lactation rooms.
Using a combination of these tools, companies can provide the best possible work-life balance to new mothers that empower them to do full justice to both their roles.
Corporate India must work towards creating an environment where mothers can concentrate on their professional roles, secure in the knowledge that their little ones are safe and sound at childcare.
(Priya Krishnan, CEO, Founding Years Learning Solutions)
