Top CEOs, HR experts favoured a better role for women as HR managers as they feel that women are equipped with better soft skills and human sense as compared to their male counterparts, at HR Summit 2012 hosted by IIM Kozhikode recently.
“The two day conference, which ended on Feb 4 reflected on the concept on ‘Do women make better HR managers?’”
Top CEOs, HR experts favoured a better role for women as HR managers as they feel that women are equipped with better soft skills and human sense as compared to their male counterparts, at HR Summit 2012 hosted by IIM Kozhikode recently.
The two day conference, which ended on February 4, 2012 reflected on the concept on ‘Do women make better HR managers?’. The summit witnessed top CEOs and HR managers including Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan, Co-Founder and Executive Co-Chairman, Infosys; Dr. Pallab Bandyopadhyay, Director – Human resources for Citrix; Mr. Abhay Kapoor, VP-HR, Ernst and Young; Ms. Gitika Shiv, GM-HR, NTPC; Mr. Rajesh Nair, Vice-President-Head, Markets and Pursuits, Ernst & Young; Ms. Simin Askari, Sr. Vice-President-Human Resources, Apollo International; Mr. M.S. Sreekumar, Associate Vice-President-Human Resources at Muthoot Capital Services; Ms. Garvita Chaturvedi, Chief Manager – Compensation and Benefits, Met-Life Insurance; Mr. Anurag Srivastava, CEO, HR Next; Mr. Nilanka Chatterjee, General Manager-HR (Training & Development) of United Spirits Limited, discussing on different aspect of possible roles women can play as HR managers.
They also discussed global trends vis-a-vis growth and challenges of Women HR leaders and agreed that women can enter “warzone only when they develop their own individual sense of identity, clearly define their job and family roles and know their strengths.”
Speaking highly of some of the illustrious women leaders such as Harvard’s President Drew Faust and Susan Hockfield of MIT, Prof Debashis Chatterjee, Director – IIM Kozhikode, said women leaders have shown that physical or biological constraints make very little difference to their professional growth.
Mr. Gopalakrishnan expressed his shock at the appalling Infant mortality rate among female children in India. He listed the qualities essential to a good HR manager which involved people centric thinking and skills. He further elaborated on initiatives in Infosys to encourage and create an inclusive workplace for the women employees.
Dr. Bandyopadhyay called attention to the current HR issues and presented research evidence that women are transformational along with being inspirational and ethical. He opined that women play the moral and moral compass as a manager.
Later in the evening, a panel discussion moderated by Prof. Unnikrishnan Nair, saw Mr. Abhay Kapoor, VP-HR, Ernst and Young and Ms. Gitika Shiv, GM-HR, NTPC emphatically putting their views on ‘Global trends in growth and challenges of Women HR leaders’.
The first day of the summit saw a session on “Gender Stereotyping in HR” followed by one centered around “The Roadmap to success in HR: Does Gender really matter?”
Mr. Nair began the day with his talk on the genesis of gender stereotypes. He reminded audience that gender roles were formed much before the advent of technology and commerce. He was optimistic in his views that jobs were becoming more gender agnostic today which will, hopefully, lead to the breaking of stereotypes in the society in the near future.
Ms. Askari brought the audience’s attention towards the large number of woman-applicants for HR roles at the entry level and their near-absence in the higher levels of organizational hierarchy. She went on to explain that most men enter the corporate arena through marketing, finance or operations and make the decision to move to HR much later. This bias will remain until HR is considered as intrinsic to businesses and not just a soft skill.
Mr. Sreekumar carried the session forward with his views on social conventions, pressures and expectations faced by women. He said India is a ‘paradox of thoughts’. With the rise of market-dictates, there is a feeling that men are more equipped to wage the market war. Women can enter the warzone only when they develop their own individual sense of identity, clearly define their job and family roles and know their strengths, he added.
Ms. Chaturvedi illustrated various factors of the female psyche that may limit her from achieving success. She said, “while, it is important for one to not boast about their achievements, one should not remain too modest. Most women are alright with working without recognition and maintaining a backseat. The solution lies in changing this attitude.”
Mr. Srivastava started his talk with an indication of how the HR area is often perceived as a ‘soft career’ for men. “HR is viewed as an employee-advocacy role instead of a bottom-line driven role. He emphasized that HR professionals should lead from front-end.” He said that he did not believe in gender differences but believes there are qualities that both sexes can imbibe from each other.
Mr. Chatterjee opened his talk with a reference to Swami Vivekananda’s ideas according to which Swami Vivekananda viewed women as the prime ‘Shakti’ of the world and the root of existence. Mr. Chatterjee correlated this with the present day requirement for women to take up productive roles.