The X Chromosome: Women in the Workforce

Sylvia Ann Hewlett, economist, author, teacher and a speaker

Sylvia Ann Hewlett has spent two decades urging organisations around the world to hire more women and multicultural talent. The founding president of the Center for Work Life Policy, a non-profit think tank, Hewlett leads a task force — the Hidden Brain Drain — of about 100 companies that is working towards realising the  potential of such a workforce. In December, Hewlett was in Mumbai to release a new study, The Battle for female talent in India, which lists 21 innovative programmes that companies are using in India to close the gender gap.

What led you to create The Hidden Brain Drain task force in 2004?
We saw a lot of opportunity for women and multicultural individuals but found they were not progressing. There needed to be a second generation policy and practice around retention and full realisation of this talent. We did some studies in Europe and the US and saw the need to go global with the effort. Many companies have operations in different countries and some issues were similar around the world.

Can you give examples from the companies you have studied?
We worked on “on ramps” and “off ramps”, showing that 38 percent of highly qualified women take a break and then have great difficulty getting back to their careers. We help design “on ramping programmes” to give them a second shot at ambition. GE launched a programme called “restart” in Bangalore to welcome back women engineers who had taken a break from work. They got 1.3 million hits on their website and made many hires.

Your study mentions that in India women represent 11 percent of all CEOs, which is far higher than the FTSE 100 or the Fortune 500 number. Did that surprise you?
The accomplishment of well-qualified Indian women is a surprise to many Westerners. When we launched the study first in US in the summer of 2010, there was a lot of interest in the American press because of the perception that women in India and in other emerging markets are oppressed, poverty stricken, exploited and in need of help. There is some truth to this, but there are two Indias really and the educated female workforce is either over looked or ignored; it’s not fully understood.

There is a perception that a woman CEO is more aggressive than a man and you can’t grow under her. Is that a stereotype? Or you think there is a problem with women role models?
I think it is a moment of transition. Next generation women leaders are not trying to pretend they are men. Perhaps for an older generation of women business leaders there was more pressure to conform to a male model. A lot of new research shows that women have a very powerful skill set as leaders. They are much more collabaorative, they have a higher EQ and are great people managers. So why not go with the new models?

Do you believe businesses should have quotas for women managers or board members?
Something I saw at Time Warner works very well. They were having trouble getting enough women or multicultural candidates for their top slot. Instead of quotas, they hired a very impressive woman, gave her a good title, a very good salary and she reported to the CEO. Her job was to find amazing candidates in the shortlist. They decided they needed 50 percent of every shortlist for key positions to comprise women or people of colour. If they ensured the list had well-qualified women or multicultural people, then appointments would change.

They were not trying to control appointments because, clearly, they want to select the best. But if 90 percent of candidates are pale male, then they are going to appoint a pale male. But, if 50 to 60 percent of great candidates are diverse, then they are going to have a very different kind of choice.

How do you ensure that it doesn’t end up as tokenism because that is the worry in the case of quotas?
In this case, the mandate of the person building the slate was to go to non-traditional places — smaller colleges, professional associations — and find great candidates. These are societies where 40 to 50 percent of degrees are going to women. Usually, such companies go to the most obvious places: The same five schools or take recommendations from the same 10 people.

What are the things that didn’t work out in the West when women started making this journey? What does India need to avoid?
India’s one big advantage is that it has many new successful companies and they have a shot at designing their human resource models from scratch. They do not have a legacy of 30 or 40 years and they can leap frog.

Wipro, Infosys, Genpact and Toyota are doing remarkable things in creating flexible work, on-ramp and mentoring programmes for their women.

There are real ways in which India may be able to leapfrog and not repeat the old-fashioned patterns of Europe and North America.

Yet, in your study, a lot of the case studies are from MNCs?
That’s because we are also on a learning curve. One of the commitments we are making is to dig further into this environment because the innovative practices in India are not well-known in the world. I met the HR head at Tata. They are in the third year of leading one of the most innovative “on ramping” programmes I have seen. It is not known in the international business press.

Your study shows that women “downsize” their ambitions and no amount of support can be enough. Are women also responsible for their small numbers in boardrooms?
The data in the US is quite clear: Female ambition falls off over time.

Two factors account for this: First, 31 percent of women take a short “off ramp” or break when they have children. Although 90 percent of them want to get back, it can be hard to find an “on ramp”, since employers discriminate against women who have a gap in their resume. Second, women have a hard time finding sponsors and therefore stall.

Successful women CEOs talk about the Renaissance men who have supported them in their careers whether it is a boss, a mentor, or the spouse. Do you agree with that?
I’ve just done a study, The Sponsor Effect, which will be published next month by the Harvard Business Review. It shows that sponsorship is essential to get a top job. You need to be a great performer, but all the candidates in the game are great performers. The person who is going to be selected has a senior-level advocate who is going out on a limb for that person. The study shows that women are much less likely than men to have sponsors.

Men have golfing buddies, cigar clubs, old boys clubs and several other social networks over which they bond and help further each other’s connections. How do women deal with this?
Ambitious young women should target powerful older women. Join professional associations, alumnae clubs and women’s corporate networks. If you don’t have a women’s network at your company, start one.

What personal anecdote or advice do you have for women in creating a successful career?
Women are resilient. I’ve dealt with both career and family catastrophe (failing to win tenure at Columbia University, losing a twin pregnancy in the seventh month). But I’ve picked myself up and started again. I have two pieces of advice: Have the courage to take risks, and find a husband or partner who understands and supports your dreams.