The previous cases, which happened during his glory days at Infosys, were settled out of court in the US with the women getting hefty sums – $3 million for his then-secretary Reka Maximovitch and $800, 000 for Jennifer Griffith. Roiz’s charges will also be heard in the US and huge sums of monies are likely to be involved, given that Roiz is pregnant.

Would Murthy have gotten away with his behaviour in India? While it’s difficult to hazard a definite reply, the answer is likely to be affirmative given that there’s no history of a high-profile CEO being convicted for sexual harassment in the country. Does that mean that India Inc has no affairs or that there are no cases of inappropriate behaviour between seniors and subordinates? Of course not. Then how come employees do not go public with cases of sexual harassment in India? Cultural and social mores are the culprit, say human resource experts.

In India, plenty of women face sexual harassment in various forms at the workplace, but the matter often gets swept under the rug. HR consultants claim that over 50 per cent cases of sexual harassment at workplaces in India go unreported and don’t even make it to the HR managers of the company.

“In India our cultural and societal norms have a huge impact when such instances come to light, ” says Priya Chetty-Rajagopal, vice-president and partner at executive search firm Stanton Chase International. She adds that unlike in the West, in India we try to sort out an issue rather than address it head on.

India’s $108 billion IT-ITeS industry, a sector that gave Murthy his rockstar reputation, accounts for the highest percentage of women employees at 40 per cent as compared to other industries. Fundamentally, the workings of the industry require a lot of travel, and there does come a point where men and women are out of their homes for months in a foreign land. Proximity often leads to liaisons – mainly consensual, but not always – when lines between work and play get blurred.

“The nagging questions in the minds of women are ‘What happens if I speak out? Will I be singled out?’” says Sangeeta Lala, senior vice-president at TeamLease Services, a Bangalore-based HR consultancy company. She adds that there is little awareness among women about what constitutes sexual harassment at the workplace.

Family pressure to maintain a “clean image” – and thus stand a better chance in the matrimonial market – also stops women from raising an alarm when they are sexually harassed. “Even if a woman endures some form of sexual harassment at the workplace, if she talks about it in public, it is perceived negatively by most middle-class families, ” says a senior HR consultant in Bangalore.

Sunil Goel, MD of executive search firm Globalhunt India, says “Women fear retaliation and don’t want to put their reputation on the line. ” He says that since women are grossly underrepresented at the top, there is very little room for them to even consider going public with a claim, leave alone filing a lawsuit.

HR consultants are of the opinion that there is a funnel-like pattern in the way women in India deal with sexual harassment cases at their workplace. At the top of the funnel, constituting a large percentage of women, sexual harassments cases are dealt with on a personal level, with perhaps just a few close friends in the loop of things.

Going further down the funnel, there’s a segment of women who build-up the strength and courage to fight harassment. Women who can’t take the immense psychological pressure of the battle reach out to various support groups in the company or outside. Very few women actually go the distance and report cases but get cowed down by questions like: “Are you OK with it because more details are going to come out about you as well?”

“Companies have to work towards building an un-gendered workplace and a stress-free environment, ” says Chetty-Rajagopal.

India’s IT capital, Bangalore, has reported startling statistics on sexual harassment cases in the IT-ITeS and biotech sectors, with over 700 complaints ‘unofficially’ registered with the Karnataka labour department last year. Sources in the labour department say they have scratched only the surface. “In most cases, women have been subjected to punishment transfers for rejecting sexual advances of male colleagues or superiors, ” says a senior official at the state labour department.

Given the number of women in the sector, Nasscom says that it is creating awareness about workplace sexual harassment through workshops and seminars.

Priya Chetty-Rajagopal

Principal Consultant
Business Excellence – Corporate Initiatives
cr.priya@stantonchase.com

Priya is a very well known industry figure in Bangalore. As the head of Corporate Practice, her focus with Stanton Chase Bangalore is to implement a non IT focus in a completely IT-oriented city. A member of Stanton Chase International’s Business Excellence Committee, Priya has also played a large role in establishing its Global Diversity Practice. She has successfully led Chief Executive Officer level search assignments for a diverse selection of companies in India.

Around the world, the debate around women and work-life balance has never been more urgent, strident and engaging, and TOI decided to bring this debate to life on our pages through a panel discussion featuring three smart, opinionated, and articulate achievers whose arguments combine a global viewpoint with keen cultural understanding of the Indian scenario.

To begin with, is work-life balance a ‘women’s issue’ at all? The discussion started off with that counter-intuitive question from Priya Chetty-Rajagopal, partner and global VP – Corporate Initiatives, Stanton Chase International. “Policies friendlier towards women tend to be family-friendly, and benefit men as much as women,” said Chetty-Rajagopal. “They work out in everyone’s favour. Around 40-50 % of these solutions are used by males in the office,” she said.

Sunita R Cherian, VP & Global Head, Human Resources, Wipro, agreed. “Most of these solutions tend to be gender-agnostic. It’s not a women’s issue,” she said. “It is also true that women don’t need these solutions at each phase of their lives. For a young executive just out of college – male or female – they probably don’t make much sense. These young people are eager to prove themselves and to spend all their energies at work. Who are we to tell them what they should or should not want?” asked Cherian, quoting the example of a young worker at Wipro who did not want to be moved out of night shifts as part of an HR endeavour to ensure safety. “She said she joined the company because she wanted to work nights! Who are we to argue?”

Yet, Cherian feels, the knowledge that policies that enable flexibility exist and can be availed of by any employee create a sense of well-being and empowerment.

As someone who has been an employee at busy hospitals as well as an employer at Teleradiology Solutions, a clinical processes outsourcing firm she co-founded, Dr Sunita Maheshwari says she worked hard to create an environment that would offer women much-needed flexibility. “As a doctor, I can admit that my life had no balance. It was only when my daughter, then seven or eight years old, asked me if I loved the babies in the hospital more than her that I was brought up short,” said Maheshwari. One of the changes she made at that point was to tell her boss that she would take Wednesday afternoons off – a small change that made a world of difference to the quality of her relationships. “Often, women are scared to ask. They don’t want to be seen as unprofessional,” she added. “We’ve got to admit that women face a number of issues that men simply don’t, or which they know their wives are handling. The nanny didn’t come in, the mother-in-law fell sick – these are everyday issues the working woman has to face and we must acknowledge that.”

It is a fact that in the IT sector, women constitute around 40% of the workforce at the entry level, 25% at mid-level roles, and only 8% at the top level. Why are these women falling through the rungs and not making it to the top in larger numbers, as they logically should given their neck-to-neck performance with men at the starting block? The panelists were of the view that the surge in the numbers of women joining the corporate sector is less than a decade old, and given time and nurturing by their employers, the numbers at the top will begin to match those at the gates. “One theory is that the decision to hold back is a choice some women make. As long as the organization they work with is inclusive and doesn’t have discriminatory policies, we should accept that with grace,” said Cherian, who created a moment of shared laughter and empathy when she said the one piece of advice she always gives young women is to do with the kind of man they marry. “I tell them they have to choose the right spouse, someone who will support and respect their career, who will share duties equally and be a real partner,” she said.

An interesting – and often ignored – insight that came from the discussion was about the quality of work, which often tends to be forgotten in the desperate quest for a better quality of life. Some experts are of the view that when work is designed for maximum productivity, employees enjoy both work and life without needing any intervention.

“Flexibility and work-life balance shouldn’t end up as words that get lip-service because it’s fashionable or because in a global firm, memos from headquarters dictate that you do so. Many brilliant, successful women, who would have been excellent role-models, have stepped back from this kind of debate because they are suspicious of this element of tokenism. The changes have to come from an organisation’s heart and soul,” said Chetty-Rajagopal.

Priya Chetty-Rajagopal

Principal Consultant
Business Excellence – Corporate Initiatives
cr.priya@stantonchase.com

Priya is a very well known industry figure in Bangalore. As the head of Corporate Practice, her focus with Stanton Chase Bangalore is to implement a non IT focus in a completely IT-oriented city. A member of Stanton Chase International’s Business Excellence Committee, Priya has also played a large role in establishing its Global Diversity Practice. She has successfully led Chief Executive Officer level search assignments for a diverse selection of companies in India.

Download the report to view the 2013 insights into equity ownership and compensation and compare the data to the 2008 report.

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About AESC

The Association of Executive Search Consultants is the professional body representing retained executive search consulting firms around the world.

Founded in New York in 1959, the AESC was established to help guide the development and standards of a professional service which was then still relatively new. An offshoot of management

consulting, retained executive search has, over the past 50 years, played a major role in the identification and recruitment of senior executive talent for many different organizations in a wide variety of industries and countries. The success of executive search is such that the profession has grown to become a global industry with revenues in excess of $10 billion.

Since its inception the AESC has itself grown to become a worldwide organization, with an international board of directors representing three regional councils of member firms from The Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia/Pacific. Its global headquarters is in New York but it also has a regional office in Brussels. To-day the AESC brand name is recognized as the standard bearer for retained executive search and represents member firms in 74 countries around the world, between them employing more than 8,000 search professionals. It is estimated that AESC member firms handle some 70,000 senior executive searches every year.

“Ten years ago, foreign companies were seeking Turkish executives, while the Turkish companies were looking for foreign directors,” George Cross, International chairman of Stanton Chase London told Daily News in a written interview. “Today Turkish companies want to utilize Turkish professionals with global expertise.”

He said the bilateral attraction stemmed from the fact that “the rapidly growing economy raises big demand for stronger executives.”

Likening the trend to the Indian case, Cross said talented native professionals came back to their homeland or never thought to leave for career opportunities abroad.

Speaking about women’s representation in Turkish management boards and business in general, he said he thinks nobody can “prevent a woman from achieving and having a better career.”

“In certain parts of the word where diversity on Boards is very important, if there are two equal finalist candidates, the company may well choose the diverse candidate” he said.

George Cross, International chairman of Stanton Chase London

Stanton Chase recognizes the important role executive search professionals play in supporting chairmen and nominations committees as they take steps to increase the proportion of women on their boards, in both executive and non-executive roles.   Stanton Chase additionally believes that women should be sought after to be short-listed to clients for all searches, not just board nominations.

The proposed Hong Kong Code of Conduct, which is outlined below, lays out steps for search firms to follow across the search process, from accepting a brief through to the final induction of successful candidates.

Code of Conduct: Provisions

1)      Succession Planning: Search firms should support the chairmen of Hong Kong listed companies and their nomination committees in developing medium-term succession plans that identify the balance of experience and skills that they will need to recruit for over the next two to three years to maximize board effectiveness. This time frame will allow a broader view to be established by looking at the whole board, not individual hires; this should facilitate increased flexibility in candidate specifications.

2)      Diversity Goals: When taking a specific brief, search firms in Hong Kong should look at overall board composition and explore with the chairman why the board needs to set aspirational goals for gender balance and diversity more broadly and whether recruiting women director candidates is their priority.

3)      Defining Role Specifications: In defining role specifications, all search firms should work to ensure that significant weight is given to relevant skills, competencies and intrinsic personal qualities and not just proven career experience, in order to extend the pool of candidates beyond those with existing board roles/experience or conventional corporate careers.

4)      Candidates: When presenting a slate of proposed candidates, Hong Kong search firms should use their best efforts to ensure that at least 30% of the candidates are women – and, if this is not possible, they should explain to the client why they are convinced that there are no other qualified female options, through demonstrating the scope and rigor of their research.

5)      Supporting Selection: During the evaluation and selection process, Hong Kong search firms should provide fair and appropriate support, in particular to first-time candidates, to prepare them for the sequence of interviews and guide them through the process.

6)      Emphasising Capabilities Holistically: As clients evaluate candidates, Hong Kong search firms should try to ensure that they continue to provide appropriate weight to the candidates’ attributes on a holistic basis, taking into account all relevant skills, competencies and intrinsic personal qualities, supported by thorough referencing, rather than over-valuing certain kinds of experience.

7)      Induction: Hong Kong search firms should not only provide advice to clients on best practice in induction and ‘onboarding’ processes to help new board directors settle quickly into their roles, but should provide active counseling and hand-holding to their successful candidates to ensure their integration is swift and seamless.

A steering committee has been formed to periodically review the effectiveness of the Hong Kong Code and any progress made towards tangible improvement in these important areas, initially on a semi-annual basis. This committee will recommend changes as appropriate from time to time.

Is it because in order to be successful women must be aggressive and mean?   But men can be successful without being so aggressive?  Or is our ability to see the picture fairly and objectively the reason why on one hand we see successful f women as Dragon Ladies but successful men as merely being ambitious?

So much of how we see the world is tinged by what we were taught when we were young children.  We are programmed by our parents but as we grow up we fail to re-program ourselves.   Look at the “strangers are dangerous” script that our parents taught us all when we were young.  It makes sense for young children to afraid of strangers because at the end of the day, children are essentially helpless if caught by the one or two bad adults in the world.  But as we get older, strangers represent opportunities and people who fail to reprogram their attitudes this way will have a hard time being successful in most sectors of business.

Our attitudes towards gender are similarly guided.  We are all raised to believe that women are nurturing and men are hunters, or at least aggressive.   When we bump into situations where women are aggressive, we seek out an explanation.  (an equally unfortunate fate awaits men who are not aggressive!)

It’s easier to re-label these successful or aggressive women as Dragon Ladies rather than come to terms with our own biases and see them objectively.

Research has now identified that often times, successful women DO in fact behave quite differently than successful men.  And they can also treat the women who work for them quite differently than the men who work for them.

Madeleine Albright, the first female US Secretary of State who served under then President Bill Clinton famously said “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.”

But this trend of women not helping other women has a rather simple explanation.  Many of the women at the top, have even more of the “type A” personality characteristics than most men do.  Women at the top probably view themselves as being very fortunate in many ways.  They’ve been given the opportunity to demonstrate superior levels of competence, and then they’ve been granted access to the privileges of higher status.  But they have two things to fear.

The Competitive Threat is caused by the fear that there will somehow appear more qualified, more charismatic women into the group – but only one will be allowed to retain her membership.  No one wants to be kicked out of a privileged group (even if she is only making 65% of what her fellow male members are earning.)

The other threat is called Collective Threat, and this is caused when a less competent peer is promoted into the group, and performs below acceptable standards.  The fear is that this new-comer may negatively impact perceptions of all women.  No one wants that to happen!

It’s safer to just keep all women away from the top of the ladder.

Do these women treat their male subordinates different from the females?  It’s hard to say how real this trend is.  Most people feel or act in ways  that secretly and indirectly undermine anyone who stands between them and a promotion.  Having a Dragon Lady as a boss works much more to this end than a boss who is simply a female.  This is true whether you’re a man or a woman.

There are many reasons for conducting Diversity Training, but they will all fall into one of two basic categories: to prevent a lawsuit, or to open people’s minds to the benefits of a diverse and inclusive workplace environment.

Most developed economies have legislation protecting minority groups, but most emerging economies do not.  The rationale, if we can call it such, is that growing an economy is vastly more important, even to those very minorities, than protecting them is.  There’s certainly some truth in this – Who really cares very much about what people say about you when your economy is growing at double digit rates?  Isn’t everyone’s priority on getting a bigger piece of the pie?  Well, maybe not – who can say for sure?

Research tells  us though that when people are being reprimanded, and told what to do  or not do (so that law suits are prevented) these people feel resentful and can even become vengeful.  Diversity Training in these cases has given a target for this resentment.  We now know that there are “groups of people” who are making us uncomfortable – and we know who they are thanks to the Diversity Training we’ve just attended.  If the goal is to prevent lawsuits, Diversity Training isn’t likely to be successful.

This leaves us to the other purpose: to demonstrate that a multitude of ideas, opinions and life experiences allows a team to more effectively see weaknesses, and grow the strengths of just about every business process.

But let’s look closer at why Diversity Training fails in these situations where it’s being forced on people – there’s an important lesson to be learned here.

Looking at the definition of “prejudice” we see that it’s basically a negative opinion made without much thought or consideration usually about a group of people.

It’s human nature to want to simplify the world around us.  By creating categories and drawing conclusions and formulating rules about how the world works, we can more effectively navigate through life.  Seeing oneself in a positive light (and everyone else the opposite) is a basic survival mechanism.  This is where prejudice germinates and is fueled.   People who are more like us are basically good, and the rest of the world is not.

It’s far easier to blame a group of people for anything than to investigate and conclude that specific people are the ones doing good and specific people are the ones doing bad.  This is not illogical is it?  But realizing and acting on the principle that individuals should be the subject of our opinions requires more thinking and energy than most people want to allocate to the subject.

This is the Achilles heel of Diversity Training: it can reinforce the “categorization” of people which is behind the prejudice it is seeking to eliminate.

So what’s the solution?  How can Diversity Training be made more effective?

It’s certainly true that the six basic (this list is actually never ending) identity groups: gender, race, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion all have different needs / viewpoints when it comes to being treated inclusively.  So it’s important to keep this in mind when drawing up programs for addressing the unique needs of these various groups.  But promoting these groups too much to the mainstream members of your organization is what creates targets for the resentment that they may feel.

It’s best to look at Diversity Training as a way of helping people appreciate the unique differences of people one-at-a-time.  The whole concept of Diversity is grounded on the principle that people are inherently different from others and that this difference is good for everyone.  So putting people in categories will have the opposite result of what the goal is.

If you’re trying to prevent law suits with your Diversity Training, think very carefully about how you do this.  Talking about specific groups of people creates targets for resentment and rebellion – this is exactly what you are trying to undo.

Robin Adams

Outside of North America and Europe, the issues surrounding D&I are unique for each country, or market.  But the corporate bench strength that diversity creates is just as strong.  It’s just that the paths leading to an inclusive environment are different in each location.

The somewhat sensitive areas such as age, disability, sexual orientation, religion and race usually follow the initiatives for gender diversity.  For the most part, once a program for gender diversity has been established, other areas can easily be added depending on national and corporate cultures.

We’ll take a quick look at gender diversity.

Research has shown that women leaders are good for business. Companies with the highest representations of women in leadership roles show better financial performance.  What companies must do is make the organizational climate more welcoming to women by allowing greater flexibility in the way women are perceived and allowed to act.  Organizations do this by implementing programs and policies that support diversity and inclusion, women’s leadership, and work-life integration.

So what’s in our Diversity and Inclusion b

anquet?  Let’s look at what our checklist says:

Communicate the commitment to diversity. The commitment to diversity starts with the CEO and the board of directors. It needs to be obvious and undeniable throughout the organization, starting with the top leadership team and cascading outward and downwards.

The most visible way to begin is by finding placements for women on boards. Norway is meeting a goal set in a 2003 law for 40% of board seats to be held by women. “Diversity Aware” CEOs recommend women candidates to their boards of directors and recommend women candidates for other companies’ boards.

Generate diverse candidate shortlists for all positions being filled.  Starting with their direct report team, CEOs can demand and insist that selection teams generate gender-diverse candidate nominations, emphasizing that the quest for well-qualified candidates be made a priority.  This drive towards bringing diverse people into leadership positions should filter all the way down through middle management, professionals, and the shop floor where the cleaning lady does her job.  All are essential components of a successful business.

Measure performance on gender-related issues.  Surveys can be designed to measure results at all levels in an organization. They can be a useful tool to provide detailed analyses of outcomes and trends, and CEOs can use them to track the effects of diversity and inclusion initiatives, help them determine annual strategic objectives, and allocate resources for leadership development initiatives.

A qualified and experienced CDO (chief diversity officer) on your team will know how to structure such a survey.  But if this is too much to bite off, there are many consultants who can help.  It’s important to establish a baseline for D&I before interventions are put in place.  Without knowing where you’re starting from, it’s impossible to later know how far you’ve come.  Being able to quantify the impact of D&I is a tough but nonetheless important part of your efforts.

Many companies have “D&I” has a separate component on staff performance reviews – with the most senior level staff members having their scorecards published for all staff members to see.  What gets measured gets acted upon.  Think KPIs and performance metrics.

Sponsor women’s networks and leadership forums.  Encourage mentoring and provide opportunities for mentoring relationships to evolve that are based on chemistry and natural affinities between people.  Women need to learn more about how other women were successful in achieving their professional goals.

Provide external coaches and internal mentors for high-potential women. Coaching also accelerates the learning process and can be helpful for high-potential women by providing them with more feedback about their performance and how they are perceived within the organization.    Sometimes the best mentor is a man, sometimes the best mentor is a woman.

Truly responsible corporations will have a mentor / buddy program for all women though, not just the high-potentials.  There are many levels of creating, building, monitoring and super-charging mentor programs.  Again, consultants will be willing and able to help you out here if you don’t have the experience.

Hold decision-makers accountable for distributing advantageous assignments. In most organizations there are key jobs and experiences that are critical to one’s future success in leadership roles. Often these are line jobs with profit and loss responsibility; in many companies they are “must haves” for candidates being considered for leadership positions.

Provide external development programs.  Sometimes managers learn valuable lessons about leadership from roles they assume outside the workplace. External “stretch” assignments enable leaders to gain experiences not available within the organization. Loaned executives may work with volunteers to manage employee campaigns in businesses, government, and professional companies. These experiences expand women’s networks and give them valuable feedback about their performance. Stretch experiences also include roles requiring public speaking and serving on boards.

Provide internal development programs. Most people don’t understand the ramifications of diversity, and how they may be behaving in unconsciously biased ways that have micro impacts on the lives of others.  Inclusion is not an easy concept to understand or act in accordance with.  Consultants are in the best position to be able to provide diversity training both to senior leaders as well as those on the shop floor.  Diversity training is a new area of workforce management, but one where it’s possible to find plenty of well qualified professionals.

Allow greater work flexibility. Technology now erases the time and distance barriers around the globe and allows speeds of human communication never before experienced by previous generations. While this has had both advantages and disadvantages for individuals, it also permits us to restructure and reevaluate how we work. The measurement of tangible results and the overall value of an employee’s contributions now trumps “face time” at work as a criterion for performance.

Since the 1980s many companies have had flexible work arrangement policies: flextime, telecommuting, reduced/compressed hours, and job sharing.  With the never-ending development of new ways to increase productivity through the internet, companies should feel shame if they still require staff to punch a clock.  We don’t expect our teams to turn off their blackberries after they leave the office in the evening, and vacations are all taken with a laptop in tow.  Nine to five has long been relegated to history.

Women still hold the majority of household responsibility in all societies, and this isn’t going to change anytime soon.  Don’t force your top performers onto the “mommy-track”.  Not only is it unfair, but it’s not good for business.  Graciously allow more work flexibility.

Some of the ideas above may not be too enticing, but this will be the result of habits that are hard to break, not because the ideas are bad.  They’re all good sound business decisions, and this is from both the CEO’s perspective as well as the viewpoint of those outside the mainstream of your organization.

For CEOs and their organizations to remain resilient in the face of both technological and social change, it’s essential to have a systemic strategy for managing and motivating an increasingly diverse workforce.  Having a better understanding of how to create organizations that flourish in these difficult times benefits management, male and female employees, and all stakeholders.

Today there are more and more women reaching management positions in companies, yet top management still does not attract more than a 7% share of women whilst the share of women in other management positions is only 30.8%. Yet it is proven that companies with a larger share of women in management attain significantly better financial and business results.

The issue of diversity and women in top management is an important area for Stanton Chase, a global executive search firm, as evinced by a presentation and discussion session on this topic organized at the end of January of this year in Prague and attended by representatives of international companies. “It is time to take stock of the economic potential that women represent. They represent 48% of all jobs and, were one to slightly exaggerate, it could be stated that women are the driving force behind the new economy,” stated Karin Becker, Managing Partner of Stanton Chase Brussels. “Since 1970, for every one new position created for men, two new positions have been created for women. Increased employment of women in developing countries leads to GDP growth and has a larger impact on global growth than China,“ added Karin Becker.

In order for GDP to grow, it is necessary to not only increase work productivity via innovations and systemically better organized work flow, but to also increase overall the number of workers whose work creates added value. Women are key to attaining both improvements. Though they make up for 59% of all university graduates, in practice women make up only 50% of employees with a university education, showing we are thus far unable to harness a significant amount of female talent.

“Women are as important for individual companies as they are for the global economy. They have a different approach to task solving and careers, placing much more emphasis on the content of their work and are much more open in terms of change and innovation, often leading to an improvement in the quality of products and services. Creating a gender balanced environment broadens a team’s opportunities and potential,“ summarized Jozef Papp, Managing Partner of Stanton Chase Praha.

Karin Becker

Karin Becker is the Managing Partner of the Brussels office of Stanton Chase. Prior to this she was Managing Partner for 10 years at Executive Search Experience and Head of Consumer & Retail practice at Transearch International. She currently specializes on retail, IT, telco. and media. She is also a specialist in diversity and is involved with spreading the gender topics within general HR discourse.

Stanton Chase

Stanton Chase is ranked within the Top 10 global retained executive search firms and specializes in building professional managerial teams for clients around the world.  Formed in 1990, it currently has 73 branches in 46 countries in Asia, Europe and the Americas. The key to Stanton Chase’s success is its accent on employee professionalism, unique strategy, ability to listen, excellent knowledge of its clients and flexibility in adapting to their needs.

Kitchens are messy, cluttered enclaves of creativity.  But a good chef knows how to enter a kitchen and in a short time produce a masterpiece which everyone appreciates.  If you’ve never prepared a particular dish it’s hard to create your own unique version, but if you have a recipe, you’re well on your way.  Creating a true “diversity and inclusion” program is much the same way.

Outside of North America and Europe, the issues surrounding D&I are unique for each country, or market.  But the corporate bench strength that diversity creates is just as strong.  It’s just that the paths leading to an inclusive environment are different in each location.

The somewhat sensitive areas such as age, disability, sexual orientation, religion and race usually follow initiatives for gender diversity.  For the most part, once a program for gender diversity has been established, other areas can easily be added depending on national and corporate cultures.

We’ll take a quick look at gender diversity.

Research has shown that women leaders are good for business. Companies with the highest representations of women in leadership roles show better financial performance.  What companies must do is make the organizational climate more welcoming to women by allowing greater flexibility in the way women are perceived and allowed to act.  Organizations do this by implementing programs and policies that support diversity and inclusion, women’s leadership, and work-life integration.

So what’s in our Diversity and Inclusion banquet?  Let’s look at what our checklist says:

Communicate the commitment to diversity. The commitment to diversity starts with the CEO and the board of directors. It needs to be obvious and undeniable throughout the organization, starting with the top leadership team and cascading outward and downwards.

The most visible way to begin is by finding placements for women on boards. Norway is meeting a goal set in a 2003 law for 40% of board seats to be held by women. D&I aware CEOs recommend women candidates to their boards of directors and recommend women candidates for other companies’ boards.

Generate diverse candidate shortlists for all positions being filled.  Starting with their direct report team, CEOs can demand and insist that selection teams generate gender-diverse candidate nominations, emphasizing that the quest for well-qualified candidates be made a priority.  This drive towards bringing diverse people into leadership positions should filter all the way down through middle management, professionals, and the shop floor where the cleaning lady does her job.  All are essential components of a successful business.

Measure performance on gender-related issues.  Surveys can be designed to measure results at all levels in an organization. They can be a useful tool to provide detailed analyses of outcomes and trends, and CEOs can use them to track the effects of diversity and inclusion initiatives, help them determine annual strategic objectives, and allocate resources for leadership development initiatives.

A qualified and experienced CDO (chief diversity officer) on your team will know how to structure such a survey.  But if this is too much to bite off, there are many consultants who can help.  It’s important to establish a baseline for D&I before interventions are put in place.  Without knowing where you’re starting from, it’s impossible to later know how far you’ve come.  Being able to quantify the impact of D&I is a tough but nonetheless important part of your efforts.

Many companies have “D&I” has a separate component on staff performance reviews – with the most senior level staff members having their scorecards published for all staff members to see.  What gets measured gets acted upon.  Think KPIs and performance metrics.

Sponsor women’s networks and leadership forums.  Encourage mentoring and provide opportunities for mentoring relationships to evolve that are based on chemistry and natural affinities between people.  Women need to learn more about how other women were successful in achieving their professional goals.

Provide external coaches and internal mentors for high-potential women. Coaching also accelerates the learning process and can be helpful for high-potential women by providing them with more feedback about their performance and how they are perceived within the organization.    Sometimes the best mentor is a man, sometimes the best mentor is a woman.

Truly responsible corporations will have a mentor / buddy program for all women though, not just the high-potentials.  There are many levels of creating, building, monitoring and super-charging mentor programs.  Again, consultants will be willing and able to help you out here if you don’t have the experience.

Hold decision-makers accountable for distributing advantageous assignments. In most organizations there are key jobs and experiences that are critical to one’s future success in leadership roles. Often these are line jobs with profit and loss responsibility; in many companies they are “must haves” for candidates being considered for leadership positions.

Provide external development programs.  Sometimes managers learn valuable lessons about leadership from roles they assume outside the workplace. External “stretch” assignments enable leaders to gain experiences not available within the organization. Loaned executives may work with volunteers to manage employee campaigns in businesses, government, and professional companies. These experiences expand women’s networks and give them valuable feedback about their performance. Stretch experiences also include roles requiring public speaking and serving on boards.

Provide internal development programs. Most people don’t understand the ramifications of diversity, and how they may be behaving in unconsciously biased ways that have micro impacts on the lives of others.  Inclusion is not an easy concept to understand or act in accordance with.  Consultants are in the best position to be able to provide diversity training both to senior leaders as well as those on the shop floor.  Diversity training is a new area of workforce management, but one where it’s possible to find plenty of well qualified professionals.

Allow greater work flexibility. Technology now erases the time and distance barriers around the globe and allows speeds of human communication never before experienced by previous generations. While this has had both advantages and disadvantages for individuals, it also permits us to restructure and reevaluate how we work. The measurement of tangible results and the overall value of an employee’s contributions now trumps “face time” at work as a criterion for performance.

Since the 1980s many companies have had flexible work arrangement policies: flextime, telecommuting, reduced/compressed hours, and job sharing.  With the never-ending development of new ways to increase productivity through the internet, companies should feel shame if they still require staff to punch a clock.  We don’t expect our teams to turn off their blackberries after they leave the office in the evening, and vacations are all taken with a laptop in tow.  Nine to five has long been relegated to history.

Women still hold the majority of household responsibility in all societies, and this isn’t going to change anytime soon.  Don’t force your top performers onto the “mommy-track”.  Not only is it unfair, but it’s not good for business.  Graciously allow more work flexibility.

Some of the ideas above may not be too enticing, but this will be the result of habits that are hard to break, not because the ideas are bad.  They’re all good sound business decisions, and this is from both the CEO’s perspective as well as the viewpoint of those outside the mainstream of your organization.

For CEOs and their organizations to remain resilient in the face of both technological and social change, it’s essential to have a systemic strategy for managing and motivating an increasingly diverse workforce.  Having a better understanding of how to create organizations that flourish in these difficult times benefits management, male and female employees, and all stakeholders.

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