#BalanceForBetter: The Imperative for Greater Diversity & Inclusion in India

What is #BalanceForBetter? On one level, the global hashtag for International Women’s Day. On another, a smaller part of a larger movement, that of gender equality in every respect. This year’s hashtag is particularly apt, for who knows how to balance different, often opposing facets in one’s life, better than women?

Ensuring gender diversity in the workplace is more than a fad. Today, it is a business imperative. But it can’t be seen in isolation. The movement to greater change doesn’t end merely at hiring more women. That would be a narrow-minded and reductive way to view the several responsibilities women handle with a precarious, delicate hand every day. The need of the hour is to view women in the larger context within which they exist. Without facilitating policy and culture changes targeted at accommodating women fully and holistically, true integration and gender diversity cannot exist in any organisation.

What we are working towards is a shift in paradigm and way of thinking. Our policy changes are aimed at building an environment of Diversity and Inclusion that adequately reflects the diverse population that exists in India. Where our firm’s culture is not a victim of a mindset of the society it exists in. We have educated our people to tackle unconscious biases and social conditioning that, otherwise, we often choose not to question.

In India, and in a conventionally male-dominated industry like Real Estate, the challenges are that many more in number. To ease transition back to the workplace for new mothers, we have the Returning Mothers Program, which follows a Maternity or Adoption Leave of up to 6 months. Further, our Child Travel Policy offers some relief to mothers on business trips. We stay in touch with high performing women employees during their sabbaticals, to bring back strong female talent in the workforce.

Diversity Month, special referral bonuses, as well as women’s leadership training- all our myriad policies are aimed at a simple truth- our objective is not to expect women to live a life where their work and personal life are independent of each other, where one does not support the other. We aim to create a lifestyle, an ecosystem and a culture, where one’s personal life is integrated with one’s professional one.

Where we have women supporting women inside and outside the workplace, where an organisation can extend a helping hand at every step of a much longer journey- that of true balance in gender- at work, and at home.

For more information check out our dedicated Balance for Better page.