Is Incorporating Family Care & Child Care in Work Place Policies Enough—Woman Leaders in Law Discuss Diversity & Inclusivity

An environment where genders, sexual orientations and identities etc are present but the perspective of few groups are valued, maybe diverse but it is not inclusive. A diverse and inclusive workplace is one that makes everyone feel equally involved and supported in all areas of the workplace. According to research, higher revenue growth, readiness to innovate, 5.4 times higher employee retention are the benefits of a diverse and inclusive workplace.  

On this International Women’s Day, some of the women leaders shared their thoughts on the same issue. We had- Seema Jhingan, Partner and Co-founder Lex Counsel law offices; Prabhjot Kaur Bakshi, Vice- President employment counsel at Gartner; Pooja Sehgal Mehtani, General Counsel, Sunlife India service centre Pvt. Ltd. and the session was chaired by Monica S. Pirgal, the director and head legal and company secretary Lowe India.  

At the start, Ms Pirgal said, “If you look at the statistics, if you look at what's happening around in terms of hiring women, women are about 39% of the workforce today globally. But if you look at what happened during this pandemic, 54% of the job losses that happened impacted women. The gap, which we talk about in terms of our representation in the workforce has only got worse, because of this pandemic because you know there were a lot of women who fell out of the word workforce. In 2020, there has been a lot of discussion about gender diversity. But, are we really talking about diversity and inclusion, we are only talking about getting the women to the workforce, but what are we doing to retain them and be more inclusive towards them”. 

Talking about the policies that can be more considerate towards women, that can help balance their work-life, Ms Bakshi expressed, “Last year during the course of the pandemic, this issue resurfaced and showed us the real impact in the lives of parents, especially women. Parenting is already hard and during COVID, it became even more difficult as the emotions were running high, children were getting restless, working parents had to work from home, attend their virtual team meetings, manage their calendars and at the same time keep track of their children's schedule, keeping them engaged, on top of it, manage all household responsibilities and taking care of elderly, if any. There is a report that says that 13% of working parents had to resign or reduce their work hours because of lack of childcare during the COVID crisis, with women impacted significantly more than men. Now, what organizations could do to be considerate towards women and men, to help them work and personal life, is by probably offering them flexible work arrangements, where possible, and that is, to begin with. So, organizations should be flexible in providing necessary support to employees so that they are able to balance the work and personal life of their employees. In addition to that, I think organizations could also offer some other platforms like EAP’s (Employee Assistance Programs) to employees who need any kind of support, be it emotional, financial, medical, etc. They could also promote women's specific ERG's (Employee Resource Groups), which of course should be free for any gender to join as an ally. On this forum, women can discuss the common challenges that they faced and what has worked for them and so that they can share some tips with other women struggling with similar issues. As well, I think organizations could have some sort of open discussion channels, where they can provide mentorship and help young women employees learn from them about how these leaders manage their work-life balance”. 

Being an in-house counsel, Ms Mehtani opines, “I'd be happy to share that apart from having focus group discussions, it was an open arena where we encouraged people especially females in the organization, whether they are facing any work-life balance issues during the pandemic they could feel free to connect to their seniors or talk to other female leaders or the other employees how they are managing. There were EAP’s which already are offered but enhanced during that period. Another very good initiative was wellness days off for all employees during the pandemic. Another very huge aspect was, besides all of these initiatives is, where the management and the middle management and employees at large, they kind of acknowledged this fact that the pandemic was one situation which kind of exposed us to a scenario which we never went through earlier and it was a situation where it was an opportunity at home for both the spouses or the family members to co-  partake in the responsibilities, deliver at the household front as well and at the work front as well.  Policies and initiatives in the organization that I think were a very good move like, how could you make the employees more comfortable, how could you have open house sessions where employees could come and talk to you what problems they were going through”. 

Sharing about the boardroom discussions when talking about these policies which are forward-looking, about period leave, other leaves about workplaces becoming more inclusive, Ms Mehtani said, “free-flowing discussions that happen and they are very open to incorporating such issues and initiatives in their policies that is becoming common at the top management that is being talked about, which is very encouraging. We still have a long way to go. But, if we've started with those discussions, I think that's encouraging. Apart from these, what needs to be done is, at the grass-root level, it is one thing to impose certain thing but when you go about changing the attitude of employees towards a particular issue is another aspect that needs attention. It definitely needs a lot of change in the corporates and people are talking about it through awareness sessions. We generally speak to males, females in one core group, or separately so that it's kind of ingrained into the system”. 

Expressing thoughts of being in the legal field over two decades, Ms Jhingan opines, “the woman's life in the legal industry is very, very different from a lady lawyer in a corporate. So, just to give you a perspective, an equal number of women pass out as men from law schools. But from 1962, If you see the number of the senior advocates that have been designated out of, I think 400 Senior Designated lawyers, only 5 are women Senior Designated Lawyers, so that's the number that we're talking about. Out of around 2000 Women Lawyers, advocate on record in Supreme Court, only if I'm not wrong, 240 Women lawyer are an advocate on record. Only 10% of women are in the higher ranks of the Indian judiciary. If you come to the law firm category, the situation is even bleaker. Only 15% of women actually reach the senior levels and when I say senior levels it's not like a managing partner, just as a senior associate or partner in the firm. And interestingly, in law firms when a woman lawyer is being engaged, the first question asked is, are you married? And if you're married, are you going to have children? Do they ask this question from a man? Never! Now, this is something to do because, obviously there is a biological aspect of it, but the women lawyers are really on their own when it comes to a law firm culture because this is not a system where women are supported. I'll share my own experience when I started as a lawyer, I never saw myself as a women lawyer, I mean I saw myself as a lawyer and I thought I'll do everything in my capacity to become a great lawyer. I did fabulous work. But what I noticed in the courts, in the Delhi High Court, is that you have quite a few lady lawyers but very few as senior advocates. The client perspective in engaging an arguing counsel and engaging a briefing counsel was more tilted towards men counsel than a women counsel. Yes, women were there in support roles, holding the files, running around, taking adjournments and that's the first thing within the first one year that hit me hard, that this is something different and gender was not an issue in my brain at all, that is going to be any kind of impediment into my future growth. When I went to the corporate side of the law firms, that continued to be the case. I think the client confidence in the mid-90s towards lady lawyers versus men lawyer was staggeringly different, but this all changed. I know as much as flag as I held for myself as a lawyer, rather than being a woman, this all changed, all reality dawn when I became a mother. That is when it hit me that as a partner in a law firm, I still had to meet my billable hours, I still have to meet clients in the evening, I still have to do my calls. if these are international clients, you have to do time calls and you still have to do business development and marketing. That is the time when it really hit me that this, my being a woman versus my being a lawyer is having a clash, there is a contradiction out there. Howsoever supportive your family is, I realized in the ’90s, that I was a primary childcare giver. I would say in addition to a lot of guilt of leaving my child behind, because of the social moorings, the culture, the surrounding environment where a mother is a child giver, there were no support systems in the Indian law firm. They were no maternity benefits, there are no sensitivity towards being a lawyer and a mother, you still have to have your productivity mapped out. If you're not meeting the productivity, you can take three years of break and by the time as a lawyer, you're dead. But you can't have excuses of going to a PTM and not going to a client meeting, it was clear what is the preference. So, I think the challenges got multiplied and the magnitude of challenges were far more because there was no institutionalized support. So, it was pretty interesting and challenging I would say and it did bring some breaks in my career”. 

Talking about the policy changes required, Ms Jhingan said, “the gender mainstreaming of policies of the actions that at the corporate level and legislature, at the parliament level takes, is very important. When I say mainstreaming a gender perspective means concerns and vulnerabilities and issues pertaining to both men and women, I'm not saying just be tilted towards women. When legislation is done or when a policy is made by a corporate, for example networking policy is made by the corporate, are you sensitive to the concerns that a woman would have to that policy? What would be her male counterpart concerns into that policy? Is it being looked at? So, the designing, the monitoring, the implementation, all of that requires assumptions and sensitivity from both sides. Recently, I was hearing an Interview by Melinda Gates, she said, the games, the gaming industry which is all men dominated, all of these softwares, when they're made 15 or less percentage of that contribution comes from technology leaders who are women. So, the entire gaming, the entire apps, the user-friendliness, is made from a man dominated mindset. So, this is somewhere, where you are not intending to discriminate, but you do discriminate because you're not taking the concerns of women into it or the likes and the likeabilities of women into it. I think we have to make women employable. The employability of the women has to be interesting and at par and parity with men. Now, I think one of the most essential parts which is, inclusiveness can only come when child care and child-rearing is a joint venture between man and woman. Right Now, I think 90% or 95%, notwithstanding all the modern men we are talking about, It’s basically women-oriented, it's women-led. So, I think what you need to bring in is paternity leave for sure. In 2017, the government thought of paternity leave, there was a bill out there that was only having legislation for 15 days leave for men, which is not going to make any difference whatsoever in the change that we are looking at. I'll give you an example, in Finland, both men and women are allowed seven months leave each, so that means you have 14 months leave and you can take the turns in taking those leaves. That means the break for employing men and women would be the same because they're seven months each. Now how does it work, because if the Indian industry starts giving 26 weeks of leave to men and women each then that's not going to work? I think what the Western world has adopted is something that we have to bring in, where it's a joint venture between the state, which is the government and the employer and the insurance company. I'll give an example of Singapore, In Singapore, eight weeks of leave is funded by the government and eight weeks is funded by the employer. So, these are the policies where you make employability less taxing. For example, what can the Indian government do? I think paternity leave is a first, second is the creation of insurance funds, where the premium is partly shared by the government and the employer to fund the maternity leave of both men and women. You have to make the economic damage of hiring women less if you want to create any kind of inclusiveness or diversity here. One additional issue that I thought was pretty interesting and we had that discussion at the office also is where you give tax rebates for the maternity leave that you're giving and it's agnostic to whether it is being given to men or women. Taxability and tax rebates are something which incentivizes giving of these leaves to be employees”. 

Furthermore, from an employment law perspective, Ms Bakshi mentioned, “I would love to take a look at it from the lens of changing perception within the organization from leaders and managers. So, to change this perception, I think the organizations would need to look at these issues by including three things, awareness, kindness, and willingness. So, the awareness of what we are doing as an individual, as a professional or as an organization in our day to day lives about these concerns holistically, we can take a look at that and create awareness about that within the organizations because these are real challenges and so all of us would need to acknowledge and educate ourselves about these challenges. Second kindness, kindness towards everyone, being empathetic and open-minded, when we hear our colleagues or team members concerns at home or at work, what kind of challenges are they facing in their day to day work life because the reason is, without empathy, we will not be able to build that kind of understanding and find a solution to that kind of an issue. Finally, willingness, I think the willingness to fill these gaps is required by the organization's, whether there are gender gaps in the leadership roles or gaps in providing equal opportunity to everyone on the basis of skills and merits and not on the basis of gender”. 

Talking about cultural change in an organization so that women don’t feel left out, Ms Mehtani added, “we have a long way to go for some of the conferences, internal or some of the team dinners or some of the other initiatives within the organization that have to happen after the work hours. We have to be mindful of when do we start and when do we end. If we can start early and end early for all so, that could be an initiative where women will not feel left out and that could be an opportunity for women also to participate and then go back and take care of the responsibilities. On the other hand, it's not only for women but we're also encouraging men to, then go back from work and take care of their responsibilities at home. When more and more organizations start doing these things and there'll be an equal opportunity for both the spouses at the household front as well that sometimes if the female wants to just go out and network with her friends or colleagues, but her spouse can also be at home and take care of things and she can venture out”. 

Approaching from the same perspective, Ms Bakshi said, “We should not perceive this as some kind of tweak or adjustment that we are doing only for women to go back home and cater to the family needs because it's for both men and women. So, approaching it from that perspective that if we do networking event at a certain time, at a certain period, regardless of the gender, they can go back home and live their personal lives or spend time with family, etc, versus saying that it is only to adjust so that women can go back home is the perception that I really love”. 

Ms Pirgal also said, “I also feel that one is, of course, the networking part of it which is a part of our professional life, that's very important. I think one other aspect is also about creating men allies. You have the smoke breaks, for instance, some choose to and some don’t choose to do it. But when you have men allies in that circle and they say okay if this is work-related, can we ensure that everyone who's involved is present in this discussion, and that way you're moving the discussion back into the boardroom versus being in those smoking zones. So if we have men allies in the organization, I think they can definitely make a difference and make it better for all of us”. 

From a law firm and independent lawyer perspective, Ms Jhingan opines, “it is less of a team building and a team- outings for a law firm culture, it is more of client networking, client building, business development. All of these meetings, these client business developments are over smoke or a drink in the evening, that is where women are most just disadvantaged. Not because I have children that I don't want to network with men,  I'm not comfortable meeting a lot of men over drinks in the evening. Now, this is a very different perspective, this is not from a corporate side, this is from what you do as a lawyer who's running your own law firm, you have to network. Each one of us as a woman lawyer has to find our own ways and means of doing networking. This is something with which a lot of us grapple. My networking sessions definitely stop at 10 because you're still being at the conference the next day, but it never ends at 10 or 11 for men and it continues till 12 or 1 or 2. Now, the interesting part is that most of the friendships, most of the networking, most of the business development happens when you're into that social gear of friendships and the laughter. I think that is somewhere women are thoroughly disadvantaged. In my own social networking events, I made it very clear, which was related to my own law firm and the previous law firms that wherever my children and family specifically my kids are not invited, I may not be able to attend it, and that was made very clearly without any issues. Because if you're a star performer during the day, this requirement of bonding in the evening, which is a must, you have to take the first step from breaking from it and I did that very effectively, that if you want me in the daytime, I'm there, if you want me in the evening time and it's a family gathering, I will be there with my kids, everybody knew my kids. But, if you want me over a drinking session just the men and the women, well you have to excuse me because I don't have time for this. So, I think somewhere you had to draw your own lines there”. 

Ms Pirgal concluded by saying, “As women, we come out with creative ways of doing it and I hope men also find some creative ways of ensuring that the gaps lessen and then there is no gender responsibility which is only on the women and men become partners with us, they become allies to us, they forward this cause for us, not just for us but generally for the families, for the society and the well- being of the profession itself”.