INTERVIEW — SATISH PRADHAN

‘Balancing pay, personality needs of women execs can ensure retention’

Tarun Narayan in Mumbai

Satish Pradhan, executive VP, group HR, Tata Sons, addressing a seminar on “Women in Management: Challenges and Opportunities” held in Mumbai

Performance betterment can also be initiated with a humanistic strategy instead of getting caught solely in the measurable aspect of work. This could be all the more relevant with women managers. The human resource structures and policies, therefore, according to Mr Satish Pradhan, executive vice-president, group HR, Tata Sons Ltd., should address the issues from a macro societal dimension. In an interview with The Financial Express, Mr Pradhan elucidates some of the frameworks that HR systems need to draw-up in order to integrate women managers and professionals with core functions of the corporate enterprise. Mr Pradhan recently addressed a seminar on “Women in Management: Challenges and Opportunities”, held in Mumbai. Excerpts:

How should an organisation play a pro-active role in acknowledging and growing the career of the women workforce?
Organisations should operate on a mutually profitable relationship of trust and understanding, a certain limitation beyond the work life. All the guidelines and processes should be communicated with clarity. Convincing norms should be evolved and employees told as to how these systems are to align with the core vision and purpose of the organisation. Honesty, clarity and a culture of sharing and mutual respect are the pro-active guidelines to consolidate the talent pool of women professionals in the organisation.

What are the compensation structures that can enable an integrated retention system for women managers?
Compensation structures here should not be guided by the concepts of performance-driven pay, variable pay, maternity benefits etc. Monetarily charted out plans can never solve the problem of women attrition. The amount of responsibility, power, challenge and exploration the job lends to a given pay system will define the stay or attrition of women executives. Striking an equilibrium between the pay and personality needs can ensure a relevant retention system in the organisation.

But what are the factors that lead to women talent deciding to withdraw from corporate life?
The thought process does not merely end with the women alone. Some of the traditionally established social conditioning is the major drawback the system confronts. Despite that, the larger paradigms that guide women against having a corporate career is the inability to create an equilibrium where life space is an equal sum of home space and work space. If work space is higher than the home space it is always regarded by the women as a compromise rather than commitment, thereby, leading to total withdrawal from the workfront. The fact that the women have not tried to take a hard look at the totality of the organisation and the personal life accordingly customise their approach to work. They should nurture a self-driven thinking that walking out of a job and hopping in after a timespan at a not-so-desired role is a fresh beginning and not belittling of expectations and self ego.

What are the motivation models that you suggest to retain women professionals?
The corporate work profile should create an atmosphere that communicates adequate flexibility for the women in straddling the two worlds. Work has to be clearly evaluated on target centric objectives. It should not fall into the trap of bureaucratic time schedules and rigidly defined rules of attendance. This implies: make work a co-relation to the goals rather than a slight proportion to the time and office schedules.