Corporate India’s Diversity Drive: Companies Ramp Up Efforts to Recruit Women from Entry Level
Corporate India’s Push for Diversity: Companies Focus on Recruiting Women from Entry Level
As corporate India increasingly prioritizes diversity, companies such as RPG Group, Deloitte, Tata Steel, Amazon, and Zinnov are ramping up efforts to recruit more women, starting from the entry level.
Strategic Measures for Diversity Hiring
Organizations are implementing several strategies to boost diversity, including:
- Campus Recruitment: Enhancing diversity hiring at universities and colleges.
- Incentives for Recruitment Agencies: Motivating agencies to present high-potential female candidates.
- Networking Platforms: Creating spaces for potential female hires to connect with organizational leaders.
- Community Building: Developing industry-specific communities.
- Innovative Talent Acquisition Models: Employing hire-train-deploy or train-hire-deploy frameworks.
“The more fresher talent we bring in, the stronger our pipeline of women for the future,” said Supratik Bhattacharyya, Chief Talent Officer at RPG Group. “It’s easier to nurture and retain talent from entry levels than to attract them later.” The conglomerate ensures around 40% of its B-school intake are diversity hires, focusing on flexible work environments, equal pay policies, diverse interview panels, and regular progress reviews in gender diversity.
Leadership-Driven Diversity
“Diversity is driven from the top,” Bhattacharyya added. “Every leadership committee meeting includes discussions on how to build diversity.”
Campus hiring is also a priority for Deloitte. “Our targeted approach, especially recruiting from women’s colleges, directly contributes to a more balanced gender representation at the entry level,” said Saraswathi Kasturirangan, Chief Happiness Officer at Deloitte India. Deloitte aims to increase the current 40% entry-level female representation to 50%. “We incentivize recruitment agencies to submit high-caliber female candidates through performance-based compensation aligned with our diversity goals,” Kasturirangan added.
Targeted Initiatives at Tata Steel
At Tata Steel, 40-45% of entry-level hires are women, intending to achieve a 20% diverse workforce by 2025. The company has launched initiatives like Women of Mettle, a scholarship program for female engineering students, Women@Mines, and Tejaswini 2.0, which provides technical training to unskilled women workers to enable them to work in core jobs at mines.
Creating a Support System for Women
Madhura Dasgupta Sinha, CEO of Aspire For Her (AFH), emphasizes that hiring diverse talent at the entry level is crucial for changing the country’s diversity landscape, as these professionals grow to become tomorrow’s leaders. “They help build and transform male-dominated cultures by bringing in diverse perspectives,” she said.
Despite progress, organizations recognize there is still much work to be done. Zinnov, for example, aims to achieve 50% gender diversity by 2030, up from the current 40%. “We’ve achieved a strong gender balance at the entry-level and aim to sustain this progress,” said Shweta Rani, Chief People & Culture Officer at Zinnov. “Our focus now is on retaining women in consulting during the critical first two years, where attrition can occur.” Zinnov has introduced an apprenticeship model to help entry-level employees navigate challenges with guidance from seasoned mentors. “Women in our company impact not just the topline and bottom line but also serve as culture keepers and community builders,” Rani added.
Amazon’s Initiatives for Women in Tech
Deepti Varma, VP of HR/People Experience and Technology at Amazon Stores India, Japan, and Emerging Markets, highlighted Amazon’s focus on increasing the volume of industry-ready early-career women in tech. Initiatives like AmazonWoW, a networking platform for female engineering students in India, and AmazeWIT, which fosters collective talent growth, are designed to connect women with Amazon leaders, recruiters, and the broader community.
Through these comprehensive efforts, corporate India is making significant strides in building a diverse workforce from the ground up, ensuring that more women are integrated into the professional landscape from the entry-level and beyond.
