Women’s Experience in the Workplace: Retention and Progression

The ICT culture in the west is increasingly com­petitive, individualised, sexualised and gendered (Kvande, 1999; Griffiths & Moore & Richardson, 2007)The literature shows that workplaces are not always ideal for women’s progression and well being in the sense that women often have to ‘adjust’ and fit in the male dominated work cul­ture and sometimes even conceal their femininity. (ibid) The equal opportunities approach often do not encourage changing the existing structures to accommodate individuals and their diverse needs, but tends to individualise this problem whilst homogenising women’s needs. Research shows that women’s career progression reaches its peak when women are in the age group of 35 to 45 years, after that there is a steady decline (Takruri-Rizk al e, 2008). One interviewee who recently joined the manufacturing industry in India in an ICT role explained,

“ I am not sure if I did the right thing. I don ’t think I will be able to sustain this for long.” When asked why, she answered, “I am the only female trainee here and after my training period I’ll have to work really long hours — sometimes on site, sometimes on call…Not sure if I would like to do this for long.”

With further conversation, it was evident that she was concerned about security and safety issues. Being the only female trainee, she was intimidated with the dominant male work cul­ture, late working hours and personal safety and security issues — working on site and on call meant working away from the office a lot of times. She mentioned about the flat which she would have got after her training was over and the availability of a company car, but somewhere things didn’t just turn up the way she expected. Curious to know if she has been harassed, or faced discrimination in any way, she was asked about her experience on the first day at work. She candidly replied she was mistaken to be an administrative staff, had a lovely day otherwise. She was asked what her plans were for the next five years. She said without any thought,

“I think I’ll move into management — that’ll be much better for me.” Woman ICT professional, in a manufacturing firm, India.

We would like to make a distinction here, we have seen women working in a core ICT firm are happier, more relaxed than women working in IT but in either manufacturing or other heavy engineering industries. According to Liff and Ward (2001), research, male managers were more concerned about the time away from their family, not being able to spend quality time, while women were more concerned about the exhaustion from work. Our interviews with women reveal the same, especially when this is a 24/7 industry and sometimes very demanding. One interviewee from UK, mentioned,

“I am working part-time — three days, but I’m expected to be checking emails five days a week. Where does that lead to?” Woman ICT profes­sional, UK

Interestingly, none of the Indian women ICT professionals were working part-time. We have enquired whether this was a forced decision, one woman revealed,

“No, I wanted to come back full-time.” We en­quired whether part-time policies were available in the organisation, she mentioned,

“Yes, probably there are. I’m not sure. There are lots of policies. I do not know anyone who has come back part-time after maternity leave. They either left because their husbands were relocated or didn’t come back.” Woman ICT professional, India.

There was a distinct lack of awareness of poli­cies amongst the ICT professionals in India. As we have discussed earlier, in Table 1, the Factories Act of 1948 makes it mandatory for organisations with more than thirty women employees to pro­vide creche facilities. However, we did not find a single organisation where there was a provision for creche facilities. As Rajadhyaksha and Sinha (2008) put forward, that employers often by-passed the legislation requiring them to provide creche facilities if 30 or more women were employed in the workplace. They either employ fewer than 30 women as permanent employees with the rest as part-time or contract labour. We felt that the Indian

IT professionals were hesitant to claim their rights and generally seemed too satisfied with what­ever was offered to them. We also found that the number of temporary and contract workers were more easily found in India. Participants in the UK were more aware of the organisational policies and rights, compared to the Indian ICT profes­sionals. When asked about Equal opportunities policies within the organisation, the participants from both the countries unanimously agreed that these policies were there. But we doubt whether these were being implemented. There wasn’t any noticeable difference of gender pay gap in the ICT sector in India. In fact none of the women respondents mentioned about any gender pay gap. One interviewee from India mentioned,

“We have a very straightforward salary structure. There is no provision ofa man getting paid more than a woman doing the same job. They are paid equal. But it’s different in other sectors. There is some gender pay gap.” Woman ICTprofessional, India.

Table 4 shows the questionnaire responses from the participants of both of the countries. The left column represents the statements which were used in the questionnaire for rating, where a score of 1 = strongly disagreed and 5 = strongly agreed. Interesting to note that the statement, ‘men promote themselves better than women’
was strongly disagreed by the respondents from both the countries. Valuing part-time employees in SECT was another statement which was agreed by respondents from both the countries. Surpris­ingly, none of the participants from India were on a part-time contract and it was evident from the interviews that although organisations did offer part-time provisions for their employees, the take up was nil. Through further discussions on this in the interviews, it was apparent that part-time work was clearly seen as a threat for the employee’s stability and therefore it remained as a area ‘not ventured’. The issue of women facing more bar­riers than men in recruitment is another theme which is common in both the countries.

It is interesting to note that majority of the Indian respondents disagreed that men are often paid more than women in the same role, more women quit this sector due to inequality and discrimination, more women quit this sector due to gender pay gap, and more women quit this sector due to lack of progression. This is contra­dictory to what the respondents from the UK mentioned. Another interesting thing is that most ofthe respondents strongly believed that education and entry in SECT profession is very competitive, also unlike to that of the British respondents.

The British respondents agreed that majority of the women occupy administrative positions and that women are bullied, harassed and dis­criminated in the workplace. This has not been