A NASSCOM report said half of Indian IT firms will have over 20 percent women in the C-suite level, which is set to increase to nearly 60 percent at the senior level.
Women working in IT are more highly qualified than men. More companies reported a higher proportion of young women aged between 30-35 in C-Suite roles than men (4.5 percent) in the same age group.
NASSCOM said HR policies such as conveyance, flexi-work, work-from-home, parental leave, anti-harassment, healthcare, have led to the positive trend.
Incidentally, top Indian IT services companies such as TCS, Wipro, Infosys, HCL Technologies, Tech Mahindra, among others, have not yet appointed any woman CEO to handle the business.
“It is our collective responsibility to develop women’s career to executive roles for the better of the industry at large. This report can be used by IT-BPM companies as a scorecard to benchmark their gender inclusive policies and take heed from industry best practices,” said Sangeeta Gupta, senior vice president, NASSCOM.
The findings suggested that women tend to come from more privileged backgrounds than men working in the IT sector, suggesting that more work needs to be done bring social diversity on course with the trend towards gender parity.
Recruitment strategies such as career-entry pipelines and apprenticeship are recommended to harness hidden talent among less privileged social classes.
