WOMEN INC ....................THE SOCIAL CONNECT

THE SOCIAL CONNECT

How the social sector today is very conducive to the female workforce

The social sector or the social enterprise sector in India, as increasingly referred to in other developing markets around the world, is no longer about nonprofits and NGOs alone. The last decade has seen an emergence of entrepreneurial ventures, usually structured as a forprofit but with social impact at the core of their work. Perhaps, it is the inherent ideology of social enterprises - that social change can be impacted by changing the way business is usually done - that makes it such a melting pot of diversity in many forms. Just like the diversity of organisations and business models that the social sector has now come to represent, it has also become the melting pot of a diverse workforce – local and international talent working side by side, top managers from global corporations as volunteers, fellows and advisers and even differently-abled people.

    It is even more heartening to see a high number of women entrepreneurs who are starting up socially-relevant enterprises. Think SEWA, Rangasutra, Under the Mango Tree, Industree, Frontier Markets, DesiCrew, Menstrupedia – the list is endless and there are more that we have been discovering each month. This has truly been a new trend – after all, how many successful mainstream companies can you think of that were started by women? Perhaps, it is this new cadre of young, motivated women promoters that is also defining the trend in gender balance and equality in their workforce.

    Data collected from over 150 social enterprises that applied to Sankalp Awards in this year, found that 45 per cent had women in the senior leadership team, and a whopping 62 per cent of those enterprises had designed or customised their product offerings to make them more attractive and/or accessible to women. That, right there, is how having women in senior management is bringing insights into how businesses understand half of customer base better and of course, the social impact is plain to see. Diversity works in alignment with business goals.

    Great enterprises deliver exciting, innovative business models riding on the strength of their diversity. Vindhya eInfomedia is an IT-enabled service provider that ensures that 90 per cent of its workforce is differently-abled. Ampere Vehicles designs twowheelers mostly targeted at women and employs vastly female-dominated sales teams. B2R is a rural BPO in North India that reports 58 per cent of its staff comprises of women. Contrast this to a World Bank report that pegged India’s gender ratio for salaried employment at 21 per cent in 2012.

    The State of Social Enterprise Survey 2013 in UK found that women in social enterprises are far more likely to reach the top ranks in social enterprises than they are in mainstream businesses. Anecdotal evidence in India suggests a high representation of women employees in social enterprises. The flexible work culture, a strong sense of workplace security and an environment where a high Emotional Quotient (EQ) is an advantage make this space attractive to women. We see a lot of women keen to work in     the social space while on a career break or soon after a sabbatical, often because it gives them a strong sense of fulfilment, and the flexibility to have a better work-life balance.

    However, all is not hunky dory. It is important that the sector realises that this favourable gender balance would be difficult to maintain as the sector gets more structured, formalised and we see more ‘corporatisation’. As the social sector matures and delivers on its promise of viable returns, it also gets more competitive with respect to talent, and perhaps more mainstreamed. While today being in the social sector may involve a commitment to passion and acceptability of below-market salaries, these very reasons could become a trap that the sector could lose its gender diversity to. Ask any social sector firm about the skew in ratio that they see in the applications received from women for junior-level jobs versus those received for business heads or CXO level jobs. The number of women applying to the higher income bracket, full-time and highly competitive jobs is usually significantly lower than for entry-level and midmanagerial levels. It will be interesting to see whether the gender ratio still remains so upbeat once market forces catch up with the evaluation of talent.

KEY SOLUTIONS TO MAKE THE SOCIAL SECTOR FRIENDLIER FOR FEMALE EMPLOYEES:

1. THE SOCIAL SECTOR NEEDS TO NOT ONLY RECRUIT MORE WOMEN,BUT ALSO CONSCIOUSLY INVEST IN RETAINING,LEARNING AND TRAINING AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT;

2. CREATE A CONDUCIVE AND FLEXIBLE WORK CULTURE AND WORK CONDITIONS TO RETAIN THE FEMALE WOMEN WORKFORCE.LITTLE THINGS LIKE ENSURING SAFETY FOR WOMEN ON OFFICE PREMISES, CLEAN WASHROOMS,AND STRONG POLICIES AGAINST HARASSMENT COULD GO A LONG WAY TOWARDS RETAINING TOP-NOTCH FEMALE TALENT POOL;

3. ENSURE PAY PARITY BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN WORKFORCE AND ENTRUST THEM WITH SIMILAR ROLES.

Aparajita Agrawal - The author works at Intellecap as director of Sankalp Forum, a social investment advisory firm

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