Making

diversity work
Key trends and
practices in the Indian
IT-BPM industry

Strictly private
and confidential
15 March 2016
 Foreword
Multiplicity of thoughts, ideas and backgrounds adds and have now evolved to include new threads, such as inclusion
meaning to our society. However, it also generates of PwDs in 2011. The most recent addition, which happened in
multiple identities that may lead to disturbances. Different 2014, recognises business leaders for promoting diversity and
viewpoints, backgrounds and approaches can lead to inclusion (D&I). This year, the award categories were revamped
better outcomes. Managing diversity is not an option; it is a to highlight the success stories and best practices in D&I across
business imperative for all organisations who wish to have the industry.
sustainable growth in the new socio-economic order. Over the years, NASSCOM’s sustained efforts to build
India is the seventh largest country in the world. A culture awareness on diversity through various forums have resulted
change occurs every two hundred kilometres. Most in a significant increase in the participation in these awards. It
organisations today have a diverse workforce. Managing is heartening to see an increase in the number of nominations
the expectations of diverse employees and keeping them from 23 in 2007 to 109 in 2015. This year, we also recorded the
engaged is not an easy task. Organisations cannot assume highest number of new entrants, which includes MNCs, leading
and apply a common formula to attract, retain and e-commerce start-ups and other Indian IT-BPM companies.
motivate all employees in their organisation. They need Leading names from the industry, including Krishnakumar
to create an environment where no one is advantaged or Natrajan, Sandhya Vasudevan, Ganesh Natarajan, Srinath Batni,
disadvantaged—namely an environment where ‘we’ means Hema Ravichandar, Kalpana Morparia, N R Narayana Murthy,
everyone. Dr Rekha Jain, Sharad Sharma, Som Mittal, Sangeeta Gupta,
India continues to be the one-stop destination for global Vasanthi Srinivasan and Vinita Bali, have supported the awards
sourcing, with a 56% share in 2015.¹ The information through the years as jury members. The awards process has
technology-business process management (IT-BPM) benefited tremendously from their perspective, insight and
workforce is becoming increasingly diverse—in terms of investment of time.
socio-economic, linguistic, multinational and regional PricewaterhouseCoopers Private Limited (PwC) has been
backgrounds. The Indian IT-BPM industry has seen the the knowledge partner for this initiative since 2010. We have
number of women employed increase to over 1.3 million,2 advised, analysed and facilitated the process of evaluating and
which is more than a third of the total workforce. Women shortlisting applications for the awards jury. Our proprietary
constitute more than half of the current entry-level hires. human capital measurement and benchmarking tool, Saratoga,3
Over the last few years, the industry has also been actively has diversity as one of its key metrics. The evaluation process
pursuing inclusion of persons with disabilities (PwDs) as applies the Saratoga metrics to assess long-term sustainable
well as encouraging an overall inclusive work culture. diversity practices that drive the desired outcomes.
The NASSCOM Corporate Awards for Excellence in This report, ‘Making diversity work’, highlights the emerging
Diversity and Inclusion, constituted in 2007, recognise trends of D&I that IT-BPM organisations have adopted in India.
companies that have adopted and implemented policies A further value add is detailed case studies of some of the
and practices to promote diversity, and have enabled organisations that have won this award. We trust this report
inclusion of their employees to contribute to the success of will have significant takeaways in the form of best practices that
their enterprise. These awards acknowledge the fact that a firms can adopt and implement.
‘culture of inclusion’ has become a business imperative.
We hope you will find the report useful and welcome your
Over the last nine years, these awards have reinvented feedback and comments. We encourage you to reach out to our
themselves, and have been setting high benchmarks within members to deepen your understanding of these case studies of
the industry. They started with a focus on gender diversity member companies.

Padmaja Alaganandan R Chandrashekhar

Partner, PwC President, NASSCOM

1. Based on data provided by NASSCOM

2. Ibid.
3. PwC’s Saratoga human capital measurement and benchmarking capability is globally recognised. The team works with 40% of FTSE 100
and Fortune 500 companies. They believe that intelligent measurement is fundamental to performance improvement.

2 PwC
The Indian
IT-BPM are graduates (excluding engineers), the sector employs a
diverse mix in terms of skills and knowledge, with a fair
share of engineering graduates (32%) and postgraduates

industry: (13%), and over 2,50,000 digital specialists and super

specialists in the area of social media, mobility, analytics,

A diverse
cloud (SMAC).

workforce
Currently, the information technology-business process
management (IT-BPM) industry employs around 3.7
million people and generates indirect employment for
more than 10 million employees. This makes
it the largest private employer in India.4 The industry,
which is fast growing, enjoys worldwide demand for its
services. In FY2016, it clocked an estimated revenue of
143 billion USD. This in turn has given rise to
challenging job opportunities as well as roles, and has
made the industry an attractive place for millennials and Today, women constitute 34% of the IT-BPM
young minds, who view the sector as a viable career option, workforce (i.e. over 1.3 million women employees)—an
irrespective of gender, disability and location. The average
age of the workforce within the industry stands at increase of around 1.8 times since FY2009. Nearly
27 years. It thus emerges as a leading sector in terms 10% of these women are in senior management roles
of employing the millennial workforce (defined roughly as (approximately 1% in the C-suite). Further, around
those born between the early 1980s and the mid-1990s, and 28% of the women employees in the sector are primary
for whom digital is a way of life). breadwinners, thereby indicating the changing trend of
The industry is a melting pot of different cultures, women’s employment and inclusion in the sector. The IT-
nationalities and geographies in India. Today, around BPM sector is one of the frontrunners in driving practices
for the inclusion of persons with disabilities (PwDs) in
50% of its employees hail from Tier I locations
in India. Further, it employs foreign nationals from India. However, PwD representation in the sector is less
over 100 countries (a total of 1,70,000 foreign than 1%, which indicates the need to implement
nationals), and over 40% of the headcount of global MNCs progressive measures in this space.
in India. While a majority of its hires (approximately 50%)

50% of employees
34% women Less than 1% from Tier I locations 1,70,000
employees PwDs in India. foreign nationals

4. All data in this section has been provided by NASSCOM.

Making diversity work 3

 Introduction
IT-BPM companies have been talking about D&I as a focus and spirit of the D&I practices in the industry. Clearly,
area for many years. There is now evidence that this focus NASSCOM’s initiatives have helped create a positive impact,
has resulted in inclusion becoming a serious mandate in especially in the area of gender diversity and inclusion of
itself. Initiatives to genuinely leverage a culture of inclusion PwDs.
were cited by many organisations, and it is heartening to Over the last nine years, the award process has provided us
see the efforts put in to enable a culture that genuinely an opportunity to observe progress of various initiatives in
welcomes, values and leverages the advantages of diversity. the area of diversity across the industry and to gain an insight
While we recognise that a lot more needs to be done, we into the trends shaping the D&I agenda. Some of the key
still celebrate the tremendous improvement in maturity practices and trends that we observed in this years process
are part of the following sections.

4 PwC
Making diversity work 5
Industry
moves towards
segmented,
targeted
and ‘hyper-
specialised’ D&I
initiatives
Leading diversity practitioners in the industry are beginning to adopt
very focussed approaches to D&I programmes. They are applying
measures such as analytics and concepts from organisational and
behaviourial psychology to identify potential segments, especially
among women and the PwD workforce. Targeted programmes are
being created to attract, develop and retain diverse talent segments.
The diverse needs of women, depending on their career stage, must be
considered in order to develop women leaders in the industry.

Creating career stage

differentials for women
PwC research shows that there are three
prominent career stages for the female
workforce: career starter, career developer
and career establisher. Each has its own The career
The career starter
starter The career
The career developer
developer Thecareer
The career establisher
establisher
unique priorities and needs. For example, the 0-3years’
0–3 years work experience,
work experience, focused on 4-8years’
4–8 years work experience.
work experience. Accustomed to 99 or more
or more years
years’ work work
experience.

career-starter women are typically single and focussed

getting on work–life
to grips with gettingandtoworkplace Accustomed
the to the
workplace and focused on developing experience.
Developed Developed
as a subject expert and focused
culture and practices their expertise, discovering their areas of
grips with work-life and workplace and focussed on as a subject expert and
in their first job, as compared to the career workplace culture and
impact and progressing their career
developing their expertise,
expert internally and externally, and honing
focussed on establishing
their leadership style
establishers, who are predominantly married practices.
Source: PwC analysis discovering their areas of their profile as a leading
and mothers. impact and progressing expert internally and
their career. externally, and honing their
IT-BPM companies are increasingly leadership style.
understanding the importance of customising
Source: PwC analysis
their programmes and initiatives to suit the
changing needs of women employees across
the different stages of their career. Efforts are
being made to proactively support women
employees with customised policies and
systems through each of these phases.

6 PwC
Based on participation in this year’s awards, some
examples of key segments or hyper-specialised
initiatives that have emerged are given below: Targeted and customised
leadership development
Born between 1980–1995, the female millennial programmes for
is more career confident and ambitious than every band of women
her predecessors. In order to be successful and employees
capitalise on the stellar traits of the female
millennial, employers must commit to an
inclusive culture, talent processes, policies and
programmes that tap into the confidence and
ambitions of the female millennial. The average
Campus
age of the Indian IT-BPM industry employee is
programmes
27 years, and the maximum number of women
for women in
employees is at the entry level. This makes
technology or
it important for the industry to form talent
SMAC roles
strategies tailored for this segment, which will be
a vital step to achieving the long-term aims and
ambitions of an individual organisation.
Hiring women
on a career
break for more
than three years Engaging
and retaining
working
mothers

Case study 1: Leadership across levels,

SAP Labs5 of thinking, collaborate at the workplace and build high-
performance teams. Two flagship programmes have been
SAP Labs has a comprehensive policy to support working rolled out for this level: Beyond the Horizon and Strive to
mothers, with initiatives ranging from generous maternity leave Lead. They include mentoring and learning sessions on
(20 weeks, plus 16 weeks of extended leave) to work-from-home managing teams, increasing visibility, developing a business
options, flexible working hours and an in-house state-of-art sense, and influencing and leading teams. These programmes
childcare centre. With these initiatives, the company has reduced have covered over 80 participants so far, with a promotion rate
its attrition rate among women who take maternity leave from of over 45%.
40% to 4% in 2015. Executive level: The Leadership Excellence Acceleration
With a focus on preparing women for leadership roles, the Program (LEAP) is a 12-month intensive leadership
company aims to increase women’s representation in its development initiative. It has over 26 participants and aims to
leadership positions from the current rate of 21% to a target of build a pipeline of senior women leaders through a dedicated
25% by 2017. In order to meet this objective, they realised that focus on self-assessment and reflection, career planning
there is a need to start grooming high-performing talent right and development, mentoring and sponsorship, and building
from the entry level, while balancing the aspirations and needs of networks and branding and leadership attributes.
women employees at different stages in their career. As a result, In addition to the level-wise targeted programmes, SAP
they partnered with behavioural scientists to assess the needs of has created certain initiatives applicable across levels that
women employees at SAP, and subsequently designed customised are aimed at developing and retaining women employees.
leadership development programmes to meet the needs of These initiatives include My Sparkle, My Family (initiatives
women at each grade level in India. to inculcate pride by recognising the personal stakeholders
Entry level: The Career Cognizance initiative enables employees in women employee’s lives) and Ascent (a customised
to start their career planning early, through a quizzing programme for women to speak up, take ownership, say ‘no’,
programme and mentoring (coverage of over 175 participants seize opportunities, create an impact, build an image).
so far). The Headway programme includes working sessions A key factor for SAP’s success in building and executing a
on improving productivity and managing teams, with a current gender diversity programme is a robust governance model
coverage of 59 participants. involving senior leaders, which includes both men as well as
Middle level: Programmes for women at the middle- women. Each of these programmes is tracked and monitored
management level aim to help them improve their clarity through well-defined metrics.

5. Data for the case study was provided by NASSCOM.

Making diversity work 7
Inclusion of
PwDs: The next
growth steps
In India, IT-BPM organisations are leading the way in the
inclusion of PwDs. In 2015, there was an approximately 110%
increase in participation from organisations who initiated
the inclusion of PwDs, as compared to 2014. This indicates an
increased awareness and maturity of practices within this space.
In terms of coverage of the nature of disabilities, we see that
organisations are now expanding their horizons to include
people who are visually challenged, hearing impaired, those with
locomotor disability, multiple disabilities, epilepsy, autism, and
profound disabilities. In order to foster the inclusion of PwDs,
organisations are adopting the following approaches:
• Creating targeted and customised sourcing tie-ups with
NGOs, job fairs and tapping into other sourcing channels
• Deploying unique technology and infrastructure investments
to meet the needs of each category of disability
• Identifying the right roles and fitment
• Designing need-based training and development
• Rolling out focussed sensitisation initiatives

Case study 2: Redefine abilities, EMC6

The first batch of 12 interns started the internship in January
Over the years, EMC has been pioneering initiatives to 2015. The interns have the option of working from home through
mainstream disability at the workplace. The experience brought customised technology and accessibility support, based on
with it the realisation that while it is challenging to find roles individual needs. Some of the customised solutions implemented
for PwDs in the corporate world, the situation is even more by EMC include speech recognition in Windows 7 for an intern with
challenging in the case of people with multiple disabilities. This muscular dystrophy, Refreshable Braille Display with Job Access
realisation provided EMC with a direction and a sense of purpose with Speech (JAWS) for another intern who is hearing impaired
to create a first of its kind pilot programme to provide a unique and visually impaired, and one-finger typing through an on-screen
12-month internship opportunity for people with profound keyboard (OSK) for an intern with cerebral palsy. These are three
disability, which includes people with multiple disabilities and among the many unique solutions created for interns keeping in
quadriplegics/paraplegics, who are often homebound due to view their disability needs and their roles’ demands.
infrastructure barriers that prevent them from travelling to the
workplace. EMC plans to hire a majority of these interns for full-time roles
and to continue the programme in order to sustain its success, in
EMC did an internal job analysis to identify suitable roles across addition to extending its reach to many
functions, ranging from accessibility testing to data and asset more PwDs. In addition to fostering
management, data mining, project management, hiring and confidence among the candidates, who
training coordination, and accounts payable, among others. It are otherwise homebound, this novel
then partnered with EnAble India to reach out to the target pool. initiative helps in raising awareness and
The selected interns underwent collaborative employability sensitisation levels, leading to a more
training, which introduced them to the corporate environment. inclusive work environment.
EMC built solutions and infrastructure to enable processes
such as work from home, remote access, support systems, and
manager and team sensitisation, keeping in view the unique
needs of each of the 12 interns.

6. Data for the case study was provided by NASSCOM.

8 PwC
Case study 3: CREATE, Wipro7
Winclusive community on Twitter, quarterly newsletter
Wipro started hiring employees with disability in 2010, but soon on updates from the diversity sector shared with the
realised that in order to be effective in this space, they need organization, and annual celebration of PwD Day across
to become more inclusive. Hence, five years ago, they moved the organisation
from PwD representation to a six-pronged approach for holistic
growth of PwDs. These six pillars comprise career, recruitment, Accessibility: High investment in building the accessibility
engagement, accessibility, talent transformation, and enablement, and infrastructure such as WCAG 2.0 compliance,
to support the 415 PwDs currently in the organisation, who digital accessibility trainings to make internal platforms
represent 0.38% of the total workforce. accessible, sign language learning portal, updated versions
of the JAWS software (for the visually impaired); over 115
The six pillars applications and tools made accessible
Career: Role rotation and on-site opportunities, career mapping Talent transformation: Internship opportunities to acquaint
through an individual development plan (IDP) and annual tracking them with the IT industry, regular sponsorship of events
Recruitment: Partnership with various NGOs to source candidates, such as the ability fest
communication about accessibility, information about the Enablement: Active and targeted communication through
modification of policies, accessibility of onboarding halls and sensitisation workshops, opportunities to network and
sessions, decks and videos as part of the onboarding process. connect beyond their peers at the workplace, the Disability
Also includes training for recruiters and alternative methods of Forum Connect for PwD employees and their managers;
assessment, exclusive job fairs and walk-in interviews special policies to ensure that communications intended for
Engagement: Focussed engagement programmes for PwDs which all employees is easy to read and accessible
include an annual townhall, leadership connects, panel discussions, The company further plans to strengthen its programme
YamJams (online collaboration sessions) and knowledge sharing through an app to help PwDs navigate through its
through Yammer (Enterprise 2.0 collaboration tool) and the campuses, strengthen the existing hiring network and
sustain accessibility of all training modules.

7. Data for the case study was provided by NASSCOM.

Questions for your organisation

• Does your organisation have a one-size-fits-all strategy to manage
D&I?
• How will you design and deliver initiatives keeping in view the
needs of different talent segments in your organisation?
• How will you manage employees with different needs, aspirations
and experiences?
• How are you adjusting your talent strategies to consider female
millennials and their career stages?
• How will you deliver visible diversity action and results?

Making diversity work 9

Focus on
gender
diversity
shifts from
the executive
to the middle-
management Why focus on middle-

level management women?

• Middle managers are responsible for delivering
organisational results. They manage people, culture,
Research and media are currently dominated by a focus on budgets, operational processes, and support senior
women in leadership and on corporate boards. The Companies management’s strategic initiatives.
Act 2013, mandated a quota of at least one female director on the • Building today’s women middle managers
board of every listed firm in India, which reignited the debate strengthens tomorrow’s executive-level pipeline.
on the scarcity of professionally qualified women for board
positions. In fact, globally, organisations are currently challenged
with the issue of the absence of women in leadership positions,
and are fast becoming concerned with the competitive and
financial toll this can mean for them.
Since 2006, developing women leaders continues to be the top
priority for the majority of the organisations in the Indian IT-BPM
industry. However, we now observe a trend of increased focus
on women employees in the middle-management level. Some Case study
of the initiatives include focussed learning and development
opportunities, maternity management programmes, 4: Maternity
international assignments, mentorship, coaching, role models, a
customised leadership development programme, and flexibility.
management
A majority of the companies that want to ensure a supply of programme,
qualified, diverse candidates for middle-level roles are starting Goldman
at the bottom of the pyramid by grooming promising women
on campus or by tapping into the right sources to ‘catch them Sachs8
young’. Often, this extends to recruiting for internship and
trainee programmes, and in some cases, goes back even farther In its business
to outreach programmes in schools. principles, Goldman
Sachs has laid out
The corporate world is grappling with the issue of the leaking its commitment to
pipeline among women in middle-management positions maintaining a diverse
who take career breaks to have children and never return to workforce. As part
work. This has been attributed to two conflicting observations: of this commitment,
on the one hand, the confidence of women in returning to the firm continues to
their positions is often low, while at the same time they are, focus on increasing
understandably, unwilling to return to work in a more junior and retaining its
position to the one they occupied before they left. Maternity- women employees,
focussed programmes and returnships are some of the recent including reducing
initiatives that seek to support women in their transition back to
attrition among
the corporate world following a career break.
those returning from
The IT-BPM industry has a big task ahead to improve the
executive representation of women in the industry. In order
to achieve a sustainable change, organisations must change
the conversation: they must also focus on developing talented 8. Data for the case study was provided by NASSCOM.
middle-level women now for future leadership roles.
10 PwC
maternity leave. The firm has on-site childcare (full-time and Maternity break support: Apart from providing fully
backup care) and lactation rooms available, which are well paid maternity leave of 16 weeks, Goldman Sachs offers
utilised. To further build on the success of these initiatives, and an antenatal fitness programme and ensures sustained
to increase its support for women employees, the firm launched engagement through calls and touchpoints by HR and
a comprehensive Maternity Management Program, which aims respective line managers.
to offer a range of services to support women before and during Post-maternity support: Flexible working arrangements are
their maternity leave and their subsequent return to work. It provided on a case-by-case basis, along with consultation with
also provides guidance and training to managers to support the a certified lactation specialist and a resource toolkit for new
smooth integration of returning mothers into Goldman Sachs. mothers and on-site childcare (up to 4 years of age), with both
The key highlights of the programme are as follows: backup (20 days a year) and full-time options available.
Access to resources: The programme includes dedicated Since the launch of the programme, over 115 women have
resources (online library and maternity management website) enrolled, and 92% of those surveyed are satisfied with the
which participants can access. offerings. The firm has established over 600 touchpoints
Pre-maternity support: The programme has a dedicated with enrolled employees through programme services,
resource coordinator (a central point of contact to help navigate interactions and coaching sessions, and has distributed over
maternity offerings and re-integration to work). Health centre 100 maternity toolkits. Of the managers surveyed, 98% stated
support and nutrition advice, flexible working arrangements on that the programme positively impacted performance levels.
a case-by-case basis, personalised coaching, experience sharing Going forward, there is a focus on augmenting the existing
and mentoring sessions are also available. programme by extending it to fathers and introducing new
service offerings such as resilience coaching and procurement
of lactation equipment.

Making diversity work 11

 Case study 5: Women of
Wipro (WoW) mentoring
programme, Wipro9
As an organisation, Wipro has been
committed to being an equal opportunity
employer. However, it was felt that lack
of career guidance, competency and
ambition gaps, and absence of role models
have led to a fewer number of women
climbing the leadership ladder. The WoW
mentoring programme strives to create
an inclusive and diverse leadership team
by grooming the high potential (HiPo)
middle-management women employees
through mentoring by top leaders in the
organisation over a period of nine months.
Currently in its fourth year, the
programme has covered over 434 women
employees till date. It has built a strong
foundation of over 60 mentors, with
almost 80% male mentors and consistent
impact.
It has found the right balance between a
comprehensive structure and flexibility for both the participants as well as the mentors, and includes
orientation workshops, web-enabled sessions, periodic status reports and progress tracking through
informal connects. In addition to sustaining the existing initiatives, the programme plans to link
business needs to identify the primary focus areas for building pipelines for women.
It has produced effective results and created a high impact in terms of increased promotion rates (18%
as compared to 5% overall) and reduced attrition among participants (7% as compared to 15% of the
non-participant women employees), apart from creating strong bonds and wider networks for women
employees to collaborate with business leaders.
Wipro is planning to extend this programme to the junior managerial cadre and launch additional
online learning resources, including one-to-many knowledge sharing networks for the mentors.

9. Data for the case study was provided by NASSCOM.

12 PwC
Questions for your organisation
• What will it cost your organisation if you get your talent pipeline wrong?
• Do you have the right role models in place to attract, develop and retain female millennials at the middle-management level?
• What are you doing to enable objective talent, performance management and career progression systems and processes?
• What are you doing to create a progressive feedback culture for the development of female millennials?
• What is your organisation doing to create a cadre of women leaders with a global mindset?
• What are you doing to make your international assignment programme inclusive to women? And how will these efforts manifest
themselves in your international assignment programme structure and the selection of international assignees?

Making diversity work 13

Approaches
to driving D&I
continue to
vary
The agenda for gender diversity is now well established, with
the industry having invested considerable time and effort in
sustaining and building on it. Industry efforts around inclusion of
PwDs are also beginning to follow the gender diversity maturity
trail. A majority of the organisations that have built successful
diversity initiatives have created a robust governance and
accountability framework to support them. The D&I agenda is
being managed by centralised teams in most of the IT and BPM
companies.
Diversity-related metrics and dashboards form part of the
reviews at the executive level. Diversity teams are in place to
further sustain these efforts, with business units taking the
ownership for initiatives. Although companies usually shun the
word ‘quota’, those with successful diversity programmes tend
to set numerical targets. A target is a ‘softer’ goal than a quota; it
amounts to setting a numerical goal and leads to a similar result.
While the targeted approach has its merits, some organisations In 2014, the NASSCOM Corporate Awards for
are adopting a more federated approach to managing the Excellence in Diversity & Inclusion recognised the
D&I agenda. These organisations prefer to let diversity evolve merit of both these approaches, which, although
naturally within the regional/business units after receiving different, are equally impactful for building, enabling
guidance from the central diversity team.
and sustaining gender diversity.
Most of the participating organisations are investing in
technology and infrastructure to meet accessibility standards
SAP
related to PwDs. These include compliance with web accessibility
guidelines for the intranet portal, internal software systems SAP has adopted a target-driven, top-down approach
and company website, along with compliance standards for to gender diversity which is based on process design,
architectural design of the workplace and immediate vicinity. IT-
analytics and psychological concepts. They are
BPM organisations continue to adopt two divergent approaches
for the inclusion of PwDs. Some are ensuring that all supporting committed to building a strong pipeline of women
infrastructure and life cycle related policies are in place before leaders and supporting women during important life
recruiting talent. Other organisations are not being constrained events. At SAP, diversity programmes are key business
by the readiness of their infrastructure and systems, and are imperatives which are designed and implemented
hiring even as they upgrade and install infrastructure and
through a change management framework.
establish life cycle related policies, improvising them over a
period of time. There is a clear trend that organisations adopting
the first approach have been more successful in sustaining the EMC
inclusion of PwDs.
EMC, on the other hand, has a federated, result-
oriented and action-driven approach to gender
diversity with a lot of customisation at the corporate
and business unit level, considering the context of
different businesses. They are focussed on engaging
women through various networking platforms.
Women leadership development programmes are an
important pillar to develop women leaders and are
supported by high involvement from senior leaders.

In 2014, both SAP and EMC won the award for best IT
company with more than 5,000 and less than 10,000
employees for excellence in gender inclusivity.

14 PwC
Case study 6: PwD inclusion programme, ANZ10
ANZ Bengaluru Hub currently employs 106 PwDs, which is approximately 1.72% of the total workforce. ANZ has adopted a metric-
driven approach to increase PwD representation year on year. They began this journey in 2010 and have hired 20 employees. PwD
representation includes people with various disabilities, such as hearing and speech impairment, visual impairment, orthopaedic
disability, paralysis and cerebral palsy. They have created a focussed recruitment and sourcing strategy by tapping into unique and
specialised sources to hire PwDs. They started a dedicated PwD referral programme and built strong partnerships with NGOs such
as v-shesh and EnAble India, which helped in acquiring a strong talent pool, training support and the all the required know-how for
hiring PwDs.
ANZ has augmented their hiring efforts with structured and segmented initiatives for greater inclusion of PwDs within the
organisation by creating changes at three levels:
Change in perception of regular workforce: The transport team has been trained to communicate through SMS (for hearing and
speech impaired) and in sign language. The existing PwD staff have been leveraged as brand ambassadors.
Change in attitude of managers: A series of sensitisation workshops have been conducted. Also, hiring managers have been
coached through focus group discussions and training to resist the natural urge to use body language as a decision driver when
interviewing candidates with cerebral palsy. Further, a task force (with hiring managers, business unit leads, team leads and project
managers) and performance dashboards have been set up to track progress.
Change in infrastructure: Supportive infrastructure has been installed in doors, ramps and washrooms after performing a detailed
audit. Assistive devices such as wheelchairs, joysticks and pedals (one of the employees with cerebral palsy has been provided with
an innovative device for operating the mouse with his legs) have been made available. House nurses/assistants have been hired to
help staff with movement, along with special medical cabs. A library of finance terminologies in sign language has been created.
In addition to these initiatives, there is an overall focus on building long-term employment opportunities by monitoring the
performance of candidates and conducting open sessions to understand their requirements and progress, mapping existing
processes to the skills and capabilities of PwD candidates, and amending/revising the recruitment test criteria from the existing/
traditional tests in order to assess the required skills/attitude for the job (for example, while hiring for a business, the focus is on
judging candidates more on their analytical skills rather than their language skills).
In the last six years, about 80% of eligible PwDs have been promoted and 20% have received double promotions. Further, there has
been minimal attrition among employees with disabilities. The programme has brought about a cultural shift in the organisation.
Employees talking in sign language on the floor has become a common sight, and this form of communication has become a part of
their DNA.
ANZ Bengaluru plans to hire 70 additional PwDs in 2016, taking the total representation of PwDs to 176, which is projected to be
about 2.5% of the total workforce. This is far higher than the industry average of around 1%.

10. Data for the case study was provided by NASSCOM. Questions for your organisation
• Does your organisation have a target-driven or more federated
approach to managing diversity initiatives?
• How will you deliver visible diversity action and results?
• What measures of diversity are important to help your
organisation achieve its goals?

Making diversity work 15

Organisations
are flexing
the flexibility
muscles:
Moving beyond
women
Balancing family and work life can become an increasing struggle hours), flexible start/stop time, shift flexibility, compressed work
as an employee progresses through his or her career. Flexible weeks, mandatory plugging off work post office hours, career on/off
working policies are crucial to maintaining employee well-being ramps, job sharing, and phased return from leave.
and fostering inclusion.
Some organisations are looking to adopt a more proactive approach
The global workforce, including that of the Indian IT-BPM to flexibility, which gives people a greater say in how they meet
industry, is changing and evolving. There is multidimensional work demands and makes more effective use of contingent, contract
diversity (demographic as well as geographical), with four and other ‘non-traditional’ workers. For instance, we saw that one
generations now working together, more varied and complex of the participating organisations in this year’s awards, a leading
family styles, and cyber workers contributing remotely, perhaps MNC in India, provides its women employees the option of sharing
in different languages and from different time zones. Certainly, their workload with temporary staff in order to manage the work
there are widely divergent styles, motivations, and challenges, transition during maternity leave.
both personal and professional.
Increasingly, organisations are beginning to understand the
importance of creating a flexible work culture for all genders and
generations by extending its benefits beyond women employees.
It is vital that organisations recognise work-life balance and

47%
flexibility as a talent-wide proposition.
A growing number of IT-BPM organisations are extending
flexibility benefits across employees, and continue to leverage
them as a key tool to attract and retain women talent. It’s
therefore important to make flexibility a real part of all
employee’s working lives rather than just a passive policy. This
includes identifying why women think taking advantage of Nearly half of the respondents (47%) to PwC’s survey
flexibility policies can harm their careers and addressing their of female millennials said that although flexibility
reservations. and work-life balance programmes existed in their
Some of the leading flexibility initiatives include teleworking organisation, they were not readily available to them
(full time, ad hoc, days per month, days per week), sabbaticals, in practice.
extended maternity leave, work flexibility (part-time/reduced

The flexibility strategy – attacking from four angles

Mindset Flexible staffing to
meet business needs

53%
Create a culture of
flexibility – embed The future staffing
everyday flexibility in model,including non-
how and where traditional workers
we work

Grow your own way Insight into

More than half (53%) believed that taking advantage
opportunities of flexibility and work-life balance programmes would
Thrive with the firm
available have negative consequences for their careers.
in any life situation
Match talent to
demand Source: PwC Female Millennial Survey, 2015 (8,756 female millennials, 75
countries, including 175 women millennials from India)
Source: PwC analysis

16 PwC
Questions for your organisation
• What are you doing to create a culture where performance trumps presence?
• How will you shift from a culture of work-life policies to a culture of work-life
in practice?
• How will you transform your flexibility strategies so they are attractive to your
complete talent pool?
• What are you doing to identify and tackle unconscious biases to building
inclusion?

Making diversity work 17

The D&I
agenda is
being driven
from the top
Forward-thinking leaders across the IT-BPM industry have found
that investing in D&I as part of their overall talent management
practices, and making the connection between those principles
and their corporate performance, can have great payoffs. As a
result, D&I has found a space in the boardroom agenda.
According to PwC’s 18th Annual Global CEO Survey, CEOs in
India have started developing a strategy to promote D&I as they
take ownership and drive this agenda from the top.
They have also realised that these strategies benefit other
aspects, such as brand, reputation and innovation.
While these responses are heartening, a lot more must be done to
harness the power of different talent.
The diversity agenda is being driven from the top across the
IT-BPM industry. CEOs are acting as powerful role models in
building the diversity strategy, showing personal involvement
across programmes, influencing key stakeholders and embedding
sustainability in the initiatives.

The benefits of diversity

Having a strategy to promote D&I helps CEOs in India
inclusiveness?

88%
82%
80% 77%
73% 72%
70% 67%

55%

Attract Enhance business Stregthen our Innovate Collaborate Enhance cutomer Serve new and Leverage Compete in
talent performance brand and internally or satisfaction evolving customer technology new industries
reputation externally needs /geographies

Source: 18th Annual Global CEO Survey

Base: All respondents (India = 73)

18 PwC
 82% 82%
Further, 82% of those
As compared to 64% of
the CEOs globally, 82% who said they had a
of the CEOs in India strategy claimed that
stated that they had it has helped them
a strategy to promote enhance business
D&I. performance (85%
globally). Dr Vishal Sikka
CEO and MD
Source: 18th Annual Global CEO Survey Infosys, India
‘If you have a diverse team, they create as per
definition, a richer understanding of the kind
of backgrounds of end users you will serve.
So, diversity is intricately tied to financial and
business success.’

D Mark Durcan
Chief Executive Officer
Micron Technology, Inc., US
Michael Dell
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Today, a company without a global workforce is
at a significant disadvantage, and that means you
Dell Inc., US
have to have diversity, people who can interact in
“We want access to all the world’s talent, and all cultures and all environments and understand
we’ve found tremendous value in having a what consumers want and need, as well as
diverse set of ideas and opinions and insights understand how people think about the value of
integrated into our business.” different solutions. Diversity is a fundamental
underpinning of a successful company.’

Questions for your organisation

• Does your diversity strategy have a buy-in from the top
leaders?
• What is the role of the top leadership at your organisation
in making your workforce more diverse and how is your
organisation utilising the benefits?
• Do you have talent structures in place to enable a more
diverse workforce to thrive?

Making diversity work 19

 Recipe for a successful diversity
In conclusion programme
• Start by establishing a robust fact base;
The Indian IT-BPM industry has come a long way in their D&I leverage analytics to understand the
journey since 2006. They are now poised to make the leap to
the next level of maturity in D&I by extending the diversity existing gaps, potential target segment
threads beyond gender and PwDs. Organisations who are and their key needs, for instance,
looking to begin their journey, or those that are still in the
nascent stages, must be capable of responding to the core
middle-management women, working
learnings and difficult questions highlighted in this report. mothers and people with profound
As a consequence of industries converging, IT-BPM CEOs are disabilities
changing the skill profile of the people they are hiring and
extending their search to new and broader skills. Demographic • Get leadership buy-in and involvement
changes mean that workforce diversity will become a necessity at an early stage
rather than an objective over the next few decades. It is now
widely accepted that diversity brings value; however, there’s • Define a clear objective for your diversity
a vast difference between being a diverse organisation and programme
making diversity work. The real value of diversity goes far
beyond accessing a greater talent supply; it comes from • Design and deploy hyper-specialised and
harnessing a wider range of perspectives.
robust initiatives to meet the needs of
A commitment to an inclusive culture and inclusive talent
your target segment
processes, policies and programmes will support a business
model where all talent can prosper—when talent rises to • Build the right infrastructure to support
the top, everyone wins. It is not easy, but the successful
organisations we met during this year’s award process your diversity programme with a clear
reinforce our belief that this is possible. governance and accountability model
• Execute the programme seamlessly
• Build inclusion to achieve success and
sustainability

20 PwC
Credits
Executive sponsors We would like to thank the following for support with
research, editing and design:
Mohit Kharbanda, People & Organisation, PwC
Ashok Pamidi
Dion D’Souza, Nayantara Som, Abhishek Kakar, PwC
Director and National Lead, Diversity & Inclusion, NASSCOM
Achyuta Ghosh, Diksha Nerurkar, Nirmala Balakrishnan and
apamidi@nasscom.in
Bharati Kapoor from various offices at NASSCOM

Padmaja Alaganandan
Special thanks to our featured case-study companies:
Partner and Leader, People & Organisation, Advisory, PwC
padmaja.alaganandan@in.pwc.com SAP Labs India Private Limited
EMC Software and Services India Private Limited
Lead researcher and author Wipro Limited
Goldman Sachs Services Private Limited
Neetu Mishra
ANZ Operations and Technology Private Limited
Senior Consultant, People & Organisation, Advisory, PwC
neetu.mishra@in.pwc.com Finally, our special thanks to:
All member organisations of NASSCOM who have gone out
Please feel free to contact us to discuss the report in of their way to share relevant data and best practices and the
more detail. NASSCOM D&I Steering Committee for their time and counsel.
Notes

22 PwC
Making diversity work 23
About PwC
At PwC, our purpose is to build trust in society and solve
important problems. We’re a network of firms in 157 countries
with more than 2,08,000 people who are committed to
delivering quality in assurance, advisory and tax services. Find
out more and tell us what matters to you by visiting us at
www.pwc.com
In India, PwC has offices in these cities: Ahmedabad,
Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai
and Pune. For more information about PwC India’s service
offerings, visit www.pwc.com/in
PwC refers to the PwC International network and/or one
or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate,
independent and distinct legal entity in separate lines of
service. Please see www.pwc.com/structure for further details.
©2016 PwC. All rights reserved

www.pwc.in
Data Classification: DC0
This publication does not constitute professional advice. The information in this publication has been obtained or derived from sources believed by PricewaterhouseCoopers
Private Limited (PwCPL) to be reliable but PwCPL does not represent that this information is accurate or complete. Any opinions or estimates contained in this publication
represent the judgment of PwCPL at this time and are subject to change without notice. Readers of this publication are advised to seek their own professional advice
before taking any course of action or decision, for which they are entirely responsible, based on the contents of this publication. PwCPL neither accepts or assumes any
responsibility or liability to any reader of this publication in respect of the information contained within it or for any decisions readers may take or decide not to or fail to take.
© 2016 PricewaterhouseCoopers Private Limited. All rights reserved. In this document, “PwC” refers to PricewaterhouseCoopers Private Limited (a limited liability company
in India having Corporate Identity Number or CIN : U74140WB1983PTC036093), which is a member firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited (PwCIL), each
member firm of which is a separate legal entity.
CC - AK
Designed by Corporate Communications, India