Letters: Organisational culture

Apropos Shyamal Majumdar’s column, “The gender diversity debate” (August 11), several factors are responsible for gender discrimination in India. Personal and family choices deter women from taking up jobs in the police, defence, law and fire brigade because of perceived hurdles in the job itself as well as content, work conditions, including night shifts, and relocation issues.
 
Stalking has been underestimated for the effect it has on the victim. When it persists, the victim is traumatised. Yet, it is seen as a minor misdemeanour. Although it is an offence, the police ranks it much lower in priority for intervention. But it leads women to opt out of education and jobs. When they join an organisation, marriage, motherhood and crisis take a toll on their career.

 
However, it is the organisational culture that plays a decisive role in a woman deciding to continue working. It calls for a culture in which respect for all colleagues is cultivated and nurtured along with a sustained drive for such awareness. It is a culture in which there is no place for exclusion, intimidation, mocking (such as ridiculing a woman employee’s contribution), coercion and above all, sexual harassment.
 

To create such a work culture and to sustain it are not easy, as the James Damore episode at Google shows. Google accepts only 0.2 per cent of job applications and follows rigorous selection techniques. Yet, a well-qualified engineer at the organisation questioned its gender policy and there was a substantial number of people who sympathesised with his “anti-diversity” memo and criticised Google’s move to fire him.

 
Achieving gender diversity is a big challenge for human resource policymakers of an organisation. Y G Chouksey   Pune
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