New Delhi: Aiming for a work culture that
helps balance work and family responsibilities, every three in
five Indian companies plan to hire more mothers on a part-time
basis over the next 24 months, a survey says.
According to a global survey undertaken by workplace
solutions provider Regus Plc, nearly half (44 per cent) of the
global business population plans to hire more mothers
returning to part-time work over the next two years.
Indian firms' hiring intentions register far above global
average, with 64 per cent of business leaders saying that they
would recruit more mothers into their workplaces on a
part-time basis during the economic recovery period, the
survey revealed.
"This marks India as the country with the most ambitious
hiring intentions out of those studied. The most conservative
hiring estimates appeared in the Netherlands, with only 24 per
cent expecting an increase," the report stated.
Regus' multi-national global economic indicator survey,
the Regus BusinessTracker, asked more than 11,000 respondents
about their hiring intentions with regard to part-time,
returning mothers over the next two years.
Meanwhile, India still faces numerous challenges in
making the workplace suitably flexible for new mothers
performance registered positively on the global scale, even as
the country's performance registered positively on the global
scale, the report stated.
"Although attitudes towards working mothers have changed
over the past few decades in the large urban centres of India,
rural businesses sometimes demonstrate reluctance to treat
working mothers fairly.
In such areas, women can struggle with the lingering
notion that they are meant to take care of children, and
re-entry to the workforce may be seen as a betrayal of
traditional gender roles," the survey said.
Another challenge facing working mothers in India is the
level of resentment from male co-workers that has developed as
a result of new legislation that extended maternity leave
periods, it said.
"Men make up 70 per cent of the Indian workforce, but
they are not granted generous paternity leave packages.
Without the introduction of a comparable package for men, this
resentment is bound to increase," it said.
"As businesses worldwide take the tentative steps towards
recovery, we're starting to see the emergence of shifting
work-place strategies," Regus' Country Head, Madhusudan
Thakur, said.
"Businesses have learned that adhering to a rigid 9-5,
5-days-a-week mentality with no room for flexibility can mean
sacrificing talented workers -- and in a time when companies
are focusing on cutting costs and maximising profitability,
firms cannot afford to operate without the best and brightest
talent available," he said.
"While we have seen that companies intend to take on more
mothers as part of their strategy to combat the financial
downturn, there is much work to be done in making the
transition from maternity leave back to the workforce as
smooth as possible. Allowing mothers to take advantage of
workplace flexibility demonstrates an understanding for the
challenges that they face and paves the way for them to be
more productive and less stressed at work," he added.
-PTI
First Published: Friday, December 11, 2009, 23:49