Check out 16 Return-To-Work Programs In India For Ambitious Women Like You!
Workplaces seem to be paying just lip service to "diversity" and "return-to-work-programmes". How many of these amazing women who take a maternity break, for example, are re-hired?
Workplaces seem to be paying just lip service to “diversity” and “return-to-work-programmes”. How many of these amazing women who take a maternity break, for example, are re-hired?
When I was in college during my graduate and post-graduate days, I was surrounded by these amazing, smart, sharp and super intelligent women with a cosmopolitan sensibility who believed that they were born to do something really really big. These women were ready to take on the world when they passed out of these great institutions with hope and audacious goals.
I’m looking for those women. I miss them. Where did they go? They were all around me, and we were all hungry to achieve and accomplish big dreams not just for ourselves but for the world too. We were meant to make a difference. I’m saddened beyond words to see that ….they fell off of the workforce. Their trajectories changed and our organizations could not absorb the change, leaving them with little or no option but to leave.
While there are limited entry points for women to get into professional careers there are multiple exit points – marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, childcare, elderly care, lack of family support and the list is endless.
It’s ironic that while the professional world loves to talk about women talent and their issues, no one barring a handful are actually willing to have them back. Why I wonder …. these are those very women who blazed in their careers, who were competent, who were super smart, knew their mind and were willing to stick it out…
Women typically drop out of the workforce in their 30’s to do all the “womanly” duties only to return in their 40’s. Too much time elapses between these two decades.
While most intelligent women are prepared to warm themselves up for this comeback, its rather painful to see that while they may be still relevant to the professional world and may have a lot to offer in terms of experience, maturity, balance, sensitivity and creativity to workplace, most organizations don’t necessarily recognize that.
Don’t forget these very talented intelligent women who fell off the workforce due to the restrictive and sometimes regressive workplace policies actually go through a lot of rich experiences which men can only “imagine”.
Pregnancy, child-birth, changing diapers all night, dealing with bodily changes, feeding babies, spending sleepless nights with sick kids, managing poop and puke with equal elan, handling older kids alongside in some cases, managing homes – sometimes with limited resources, teaches them extremely valuable organizational lessons of resilience, patience, balance, emotional maturity, sensitivity, resource optimization, self awareness, ownership, empathy and much more…
Aren’t these the very attributes our leadership development programs in organizations focus on?
Don’t organizations spend millions of dollars to build a pipeline of leaders who are self-aware, demonstrate empathy, are resilient and possess emotional maturity? Well, here you have a whole cadre of enriched women who come back to the workforce with exactly that.
And you don’t even acknowledge them or on the contrary, dismiss that time period as “unproductive” hence not counted?
So you start at 40 from where you left at 30!
It’s truly disturbing and needs urgent disruption. I know too many women in this trap and that needs to be broken.
Enough has been said about this issue… its now time to see some real action on the ground, to see more number of organizations actually having “honest” hiring intentions for returnee professional women.
Enough and more organizations in the tech, pharma space have programs with fancy names – “returnee professionals program” “restart 2.0” “have them back” etc etc…. for women professionals who fell off the workforce in their 30s.
The truth is, before they actually hire someone from that category, it will make “news” in the diversity section of the company journal or a speech in some fancy women’s conference. When they do come down to hiring, not more than 1 or 2 from a room full of 50 professional women CAs / MBAs/ Engineers/ social sector grads and some with rich consulting backgrounds. It’s almost farcical to have such programs which don’t even have real traction or make a real difference to the lives of these women.
They are not asking for charity; they are super smart, all they need is an opportunity – a fair and real one. The last thing they need is being mislead into believing that they yet again lost it by a whisker.
Now that would be unfortunate!
Image source: YouTube
Hi, Hello, everyone, I’m Kamaldeep, good to meet you! Randomly organized. definitely maybe, are oxymorons that define a lot of us. And I figured… It’s okay to live them unapologetically and come out read more...
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People say that women are the greatest enemies of women. I vehemently disagree. It is the patriarchal mindset that makes women believe in the wrong ideology.
The entire world celebrates International Women’s Day on March 8, 2024. It should be a joyful day, but unfortunately, not all women are entitled to this privilege, as violence against women is at its peak. The experience of oppression pushes many women to choose freedom. As far as patriotism is concerned, feminism is not a cup of tea in this society.
What happens when a woman decides to stand up for herself? Does this world easily accept the decisions of women in this society? What inspires them to be free of the clutches of the oppression that women have faced for ages? Most of the time, women do not get the chance to decide for themselves. Their lives are always at the mercy of someone, which can be their parents, siblings, husband, or children.
In some cases, women do not feel the need to make any decisions. They are taught to obey the patriarchal system, which makes them believe that they are right. In my family, I was never taught to make decisions on my own. It was always my parents who bought dresses and all that I needed.
14 years after her last feature film Dhobi Ghat, storyteller extraordinaire comes up with her new film, Laapataa Ladies, a must watch.
*Some spoilers alert*
Every religion around the world dictates terms to women. The onus is always on women to be ‘modest’ and cover their faces and bodies so men can’t be “tempted”, rather than on men to keep their eyes where they belong and behave like civilized beings. So much so that even rape has been excused on the grounds of women eating chowmein or ‘men will be men’. I think the best Hindi movie retort to this unwanted advice on ‘akeli ladki khuli tijori ki tarah hoti hai’ (an alone woman is like an open jewellery box) came from Geet in Jab We Met – Kya aap gyan dene ke paise lete hain kyonki chillar nahin hain mere paas.
The premise of Laapataa Ladies is beautifully simple – two brides clad in the ghunghat that covers their identity get mixed up on a train. Within this Russian Doll, you get a comedy of errors, a story of getting lost, a commentary on patriarchy’s attitude towards women, a mystery, and a tale of finding oneself, all in one. Done with a mostly light touch that has you laughing and nodding along.
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