4 leadership lessons on building diverse, inclusive and gender-balanced workplaces
Perspectives from women leaders across different industries in the start-up ecosystem.
Conversations and strategies around gender-balance, diversity and inclusion have been dominating organizations’ leadership agendas for a while now. Companies are actively investing in programs designed to bridge their workforce gender gap, increase the representation of women in managerial positions, and make their workplaces more progressive and inclusive.
And although on paper, it may seem like we’ve made significant headway in this direction, we still have a long way to go in terms of sustaining these initiatives without compromising on the quality of talent.
Earlier this month, Hiver organized an industry discussion with a panel of four highly-prolific women leaders from different realms of expertise in the startup ecosystem. The panel included Sunita Mohanty — Trust & Safety Director at Google & Investor at Xoogler Angels; Priya Mohan — Startup Sensei at Venture Highway; Ruchira Gokhale — Head of Consulting Solutions at Interweave; and Ratna Joshi — Head of Learning & Development for Mahindra & Mahindra.
Our VP, Marketing, Mohita Nagpal spoke to these women leaders to unearth authentic narratives and firsthand experiences in building more gender-balanced workplaces, with a focus on D&I initiatives.
Here are the key highlights from the conversation:
1. “Diversity is about democratizing the opportunity, but not lowering the bar” — Priya Mohan, Venture Highway
When we speak of workplace diversity, we can’t ignore the fact that several organizations still approach it from a surface-level perspective of fulfilling quotas — something that has to be checked off a list.
Instead of looking at diversity as a mere “to-do”, and thus making rushed hiring decisions at the cost of quality, organizations should factor in the long-term economic benefits that come with diverse perspectives. In the words of Priya Mohan of Venture Highway, they should “recruit strategically for diversity; not for quota”.
2. “Organizations can create remarkable policies around diversity and inclusion, but often even the best of their intentions can be offset by unconscious bias and microaggressions.” — Sunita Mohanty, Google
Workplace microaggressions and unconscious bias are rather delicate subjects. Even well-meaning employees can go a long way in reinforcing stereotypes by what they say in jest and banter. Change has to happen not just at an organizational level but at an individual level.
Sunita Mohanty talked about an exercise that Google did for a month. They asked all their employees to write down their experiences with workplace microaggressions and unconscious bias on a whiteboard, and the answers were eye-opening, to say the least.
She brought up a particular example of a woman who was picked on by the men in her team for leaving office at 5 pm one evening. They asked her if she was leaving early because she had a party to attend. A function of such biases is perhaps why women employees often feel compelled to overcompensate and work harder to prove their worth.
3. “Leaders are highly driven by numbers and ROI — but more often than not, D&I initiatives don’t have an immediate ROI benefit that many other strategic business decisions tend to offer.” — Ruchira Gokhale, Interweave
According to Ruchira Gokhale of Interweave, one of the biggest roadblocks that stand in the way of effective diversity hiring is that leaders in organizations are excessively dependent on numbers. They lack “conviction” and “patience” since these initiatives don’t have a direct and immediate bearing on their business’ ROI.
The results, she points out, go far beyond numbers — they may not be immediately quantifiable; they likely won’t show up in the current fiscal year’s balance sheets. But, a well-thought-out D&I strategy might remarkably impact the quality of an organization’s workforce in the long run.
4. “While organizations and leaders play a significant role in empowering women, it’s equally important for women to understand their own boundary conditions and ambitions.” — Ratna Joshi, Mahindra & Mahindra.
Ratna Joshi of Mahindra & Mahindra believes that leaders can’t function alone to make workplaces more conducive for women and their growth — organizations and women, both have to come together.
“In my experience of working on several leadership development programs with women employees, I have realized that sharing multiple real-life examples of how other women in the organization have navigated through difficult work situations puts their insecurities to rest and empowers them.”
Above are a few of the many areas of concerns around diversity, and actionable pointers to make workplaces more inclusive that our panelists touched upon. If you’re interested, you can watch the entire conversation here.
