“Women quit work after maternity...

Those who get support from home may continue to work, but those who don’t, quit. How will your programs change society?"

We heard this recently during a sales meeting with a prospective client and completely understood the challenge the DEI leader was facing.

This is a question we’ve asked ourselves multiple times - “Are we trying to change society?”

Yes and No.

Diversity and Inclusion is a long-drawn process and not the sole responsibility of organisations at that. Often, a woman’s continuation at work is driven by the support they get at home. There are enough families who still believe that child raising is solely the woman’s responsibility. We alone can’t change that.

However, we do believe that small steps create a big ripple effect. When organizations extend explicit support to their women, they create a loyal and productive workforce that try harder to stay in the organisation.

With these small ripple effects, we will see a shift in the society, albeit slowly.?

Our recent research (of over 1500+ women) showed that ‘absence of explicit support’ continues to be the biggest reason why women don’t continue in an organizations post maternity.

While organizations are measuring their gender ratio across all levels, it is not enough.

As we know – What gets measured, gets improved.?

The biggest example is measuring gender ratios across levels, which has ensured greater focus on women hiring across levels.?

Some companies ensure that there are equal number of men and women in the final shortlist.?

Some companies open the first 60 days (of the role opening) to only women candidates.

Some companies have gone to the extent of earmarking certain roles as ‘Only for women’.

These are great measures and surely will improve hiring more women in the team more consciously.

Unfortunately, when it comes to retaining women, very few DEI teams even look at these metrics.

• What % of women come back from their maternity leave? (Measure this YoY to observe notable differences)
• What % of women returning from maternity leave – continue post 6 months?
• What % of women returning from maternity leave – continue post 12 months?
• What are the top 3 reasons for exit??
• What can the organisation do to address these reasons?

When the organization starts to treat each exit post maternity leave with the same lens as they see employee attrition, we will see active measures for improvement.

Individuals quit companies for different reasons (more money, better title, interpersonal issues), which are outside the organization’s control. Organisations still actively try and understand the reasons through exit interviews.

The feedback from these inputs creates different interventions to manage attrition better.

Why should it be any different when it comes to retaining women through their motherhood journey?

If you’d like to explore new ways to retain the women in your organisation - write to us at [email protected]!

Lochan Narayanan

Founder and CEO