IT firms must renew efforts to boost women's representation, experts say

While the ongoing push to bring employees back to offices will increase dropouts, companies need to ensure that women employees can acquire new skills so that they stay on board, experts said.

According to a Mint analysis, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), Infosys Ltd, Wipro Ltd and HCL Technologies Ltd saw their combined workforce drop by over 60,000 in FY24, while the overall share of women in these four companies remained unchanged at 35.5% as of 31 March, compared to 35.6% a year ago. While the share of women employees at these four firms remained about the same over the past year, their absolute number fell by 22,498.

‘Efforts have plateaued’

“It is possible that the vigour with which the IT sector increased its diversity quotient from small numbers to 35% has now plateaued," said Aparna Mittal, founder of the Samāna Centre for Gender, Policy and Law. “A certain psychological barrier comes in where companies become complacent because they have a more diverse workforce than many other firms in India."

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Although the IT services sector has been recruiting en masse from engineering campuses, they need to study the reasons why women employees quit, and whether enough women are hired to replace those that leave, Mittal added.

Akhilesh Tuteja, Partner and National Leader, clients and markets and technology, media and Telecommunications (TMT) at KPMG in India, noted that many IT companies were investing in training, hiring, and mentoring women, which will build a stronger pipeline of female leaders.

“The fact that half of new hires are already women is a positive sign. I am optimistic that this ongoing focus on diversity will lead to a more balanced IT workforce in the coming years," he said.

At TCS, the share of women employees remained nearly flat at 35.6% as of 31 March from 35.7% a year ago, with 5,300 fewer women in the workforce. At Infosys, the share of women employees declined from 39.4% to 39.3%, with a net reduction of more than 10,000.

At Wipro, the share of women in the workforce increased from 36% to 36.6% over the same period, but their absolute number was down about 7,000.

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HCL Tech, meanwhile, saw the share of women employees fall marginally from 29.2% to 29.1%, but their absolute number increased as the company did not see overall attrition in FY24; its workforce grew by 1,537 employees.

Skill in the game

There has been a renewed push for gender diversity since the number of women dropoutsshot up during the pandemic as many had to juggle responsibilities at home and at work. However, a slowdown in recruitment will likely cause diversity numbers to stagnate as well.

Nirmala Menon, founder of Interweave Consulting, which works on diversity and gender parity in India firms, said companies must keep track of whether women employees are receiving adequate training. "Across all industries, including IT, women require more persuasion to acquire skills. IT firms must get more women trained in skills such as AI to prevent dropouts," she added.

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The need for increased gender diversity is prompting many IT firms to recruit more women from colleges.

"Over the past couple of years we have seen higher recruitment of women from campuses in the IT services sector," said the placement head at one of Bengaluru's largest engineering colleges. “However, shifting to another location remains a challenge for many of the women candidates."