How can women realize the potential of South Asia?

Women make up half of the potential human capital in South Asia’s economy but hold as little as 3% of senior positions. What policies and practices can empower women to realize the potential of South Asia?

The lack of enough women in leadership positions isn’t just coming in the way of South Asia’s ability to realize its economic potential. It is a real, tangible challenge that corporations face every day, everywhere, which is why we must ensure this issue continues getting the right attention at large fora such as the World Economic Forum.

The reason it is such a huge challenge is simple – the world is facing a talent crunch and we cannot afford to lose out on the aptitude and value of nearly 50% of the population. So when the hiring manager goes out to find talent, gender isn’t exactly the top priority – it’s getting the right people for the right job. It’s finding the right set of skills that will deliver results. It’s fighting the war for talent. And that is pretty much how I’ve always approached the issue of gender diversity in the workforce. Having said that, it is also my opinion that women bring different, complementary leadership styles to the organizations that greatly add to their culture and success.

However, to make all of this happen, organizations need to embed a culture of gender diversity into their overall operating mechanism. Building a more gender-diverse employee base cannot operate as an independent “initiative” – it should be built into processes and practices with metrics aligned through the hire to retire life cycle: the hiring process, performance evaluation, promotions, attrition tracking and so on.

This is what organizations like Genpact are doing – by making it a priority and embedding it across its operations. Our gender diversity ratio is 37%-40%; the number of women senior leaders is up from 65 in 2010 to 84 in 2012; and we have women leading in core areas such as Process Expertise practice, Global Lean Six Sigma, Infrastructure & Logistics, Marketing & Customer Loyalty, Global Controllership and Corporate Social Responsibility & Diversity. Additionally, we are focusing on second career hiring initiatives targeted at women who want to re-enter the corporate world, and sponsoring and mentoring women in a structured and measurable way. My personal goal is to have at least two women on our board.

While we have a long way to go, the impact of this effort has been significant. We have consistently received recognition from industry bodies, including NASSCOM. We are seeing lower attrition rates and our net promoter score is at an all-time high. It is probably not realistic to draw a cause-and-effect linkage between the two, but there are enough data points to suggest that having more women on board and the resulting diversity in leadership style is definitely making an impact.

However for there to be significant impact on a large scale, we must continue highlighting the issue, debating it, sharing best practices and bringing insights together at fora such as World Economic Forum. I look forward to hearing from others on their view on this important issue.

Author: N.V. (Tiger) Tyagarajan is President and Chief Executive Officer of Genpact Ltd, India. He will be attending the World Economic Forum on India 2012.

Image: A broker looks at her computer at a firm in Mumbai REUTERS/Arko Datta