MUMBAI: India Inc appears to have moved the needle on gender diversity over the past four years. An average of seven sectors that a study by Avtar Group covered shows women ’s representation has risen from 18.7% in 2016 to 25.7% in 2019, and it is expected to cross 26% this year. Avtar is a leading diversity and inclusion (D&I) firm.

The report is based on data from across 353 companies that employ more than 10 lakh women.

Sector-wise, it’s a mixed bag though. Consulting , fast-moving consumer goods ( FMCG ) and information technology and information technology-enabled services (IT and ITeS) are expected to inch up on the percentage of women’s representation in 2020 while pharmaceuticals and hospitality could see a dip.

Saundarya Rajesh, founder president of Avtar, said, “Consulting industry has a greater diversity consciousness. With more women pursuing MBAs , the FMCG sector, too, has enhanced its gender diversity quotient. On the other hand, manufacturing, which is the lowest in terms of women’s representation (8% in 2019), is expected to bounce back this year to over 10%. The initial blip in women’s representation in manufacturing (see chart) could be an effect of market conditions. However, It could become a potent career option for women as the industry is becoming increasingly tech-enabled.”

Women’s representation in consulting, which has their highest representation in India, is estimated to reach 44% by 2020. Arvind Gupta, partner and head, management consulting at KPMG in India, said, “The top two attractive choices at B-schools are investment banking and consulting. Women candidates we interact with are willing to put their careers ahead to accommodate the consulting work requirements. At the same time, companies also try to make the work environment as conducive as possible to encourage more women into the profession. Companies also realize that women bring in a different perspective to problem solving.”

FMCG has seen an increase in women from 12% in 2016 to 20% in 2020. Companies are not only actively hiring from a gender distributed talent pool, they are also introducing innovative variants of flexibility, like location free roles, which is an important enabler for women.

Unilever’s Indian subsidiary Hindustan Unilever (HUL), which started on its D&I journey a decade back, is way ahead of the average FMCG industry statistics on gender diversity. Anuradha Razdan, executive director (HR), HUL, told TOI: “Ten years ago, Unilever was globally at 38% (women’s representation to the overall workforce). And now, it has reached 50%. HUL has been a key part of driving this gender balance. When we started a decade ago, we were the lowest performing geography at 18% gender diversity. Today, we are at 42%. We still have some room to cover. It’s our ambition that by 2022, we want to be gender balanced at 50% representation from women.”

With advancement in technology, manufacturing, which is ranked lowest in D&I among the sectors covered, is no longer seen as a manual labour-intensive sector. This has enabled companies to include women right from the shop-floor level.

Rajesh said with several manufacturing units starting operations in India’s Tier-2 and 3 cities, the opportunities they provide to the local women’s population is not only huge but also breaking gender stereotypes.

However, BFSI, which is seen as a beacon for gender diversity, with women’s representation rising from 25% in 2018 to 32% in 2019, is expected to see a slight decline to 31.5% this year. The sector continues to attract talent as commerce is an undergraduate stream that has one of the highest number of women pursuing the course and 49% of all enrolled graduates in commerce are women, according to All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2017-2018.

In pharmaceuticals, despite a focus on research and development, women’s representation has fallen from 23% in 2017 to 19% in 2019. This is projected to move down to 15.3% in 2020. “From our critical observations of similar industries, the sector can incorporate several best practices to become more gender inclusive. There should be a focus on building inclusive work environments. Companies can identify specific functions and roles that can render themselves to women’s employment and initiate gender diversity awareness in these areas,” said Rajesh.

In hospitality, women’s representation progressed from 24% in 2016 to 29% in 2019. As nearly 39% students enrolling in hospitality courses are women, there is available talent. “This is an industry that monetizes care-giving. Relationship-building is a huge driver for multiple lines of work in the hospitality sector. Women who are known to have higher emotional intelligence, are capable of building and growing careers in the industry. However, hospitality has become a feeder industry for allied industries like online services, which makes it difficult to retain women,” said Rajesh.

One of the earliest to adopt diversity consciousness, several IT and ITES companies have visible public programmes for diversity hiring and many of these companies look at the vast available talent pool of second career women as an important talent pool and have programmes to recruit these women. This sector thus has one of the highest representation of women. Over the years, the number has moved up from 31% in 2016 to 34% in 2019 and forecasts show that this can further move up to 35.6% in 2020.

