Bangalore:
When Rakesh Shukla started his technical writing outsourcing firm
called The Writers Block (TWB), he decided to go after a somewhat
unexpected source of labour to staff his company: the unemployed.
To
be more specific, he looked for women who had taken some time off to
raise a child, but were looking to get back into the workforce. “A lot
of times they have had some kind of experience and been relatively
successful,” he says. “They have quality, but have taken a break and
want to do something different.”
Loving
it: Prema Radhakrishnan, a technical writer at The Writers Block, says
flexi-timings were what attracted her to her job, but it’s the
challenges that keep her there.
As the demand for good
people far outstrips their supply, and companies of all sizes struggle
to find enough skilled employees, companies are turning to alternative
tracks to meet the need.
“I think it’s an idea whose time
is about to come,” says Ajay Sood, director of job training company KPO
Academy, which seeks out women at home to teach its classes. Since the
courses are set in advance—four hours every Monday afternoon for 10
weeks, for example—and don’t require a full-time commitment, Sood says,
the job profile is ideal for women who have some outsourcing industry
experience, but need more time at home. “There’s always a shortage of
talent,” he says. “At any given time, you have a pool of women
professionals who have taken a break for family reasons. Somebody can
put two and two together and make a business solution out of it,” Sood
adds.
Especially for smaller companies, and positions that
can promise more flexibility and stability, women at home are seen as
ideal candidates. TWB, for example, which also offers courses in
technical writing, runs newspaper ads and online contests specifically
targeting the stay-at-home demographic. More than half of the people
the company trains are women getting back into the workforce, according
to Shukla. Around half of the company’s own staff, who are often pulled
from its courses, also fall into that group.
While companies
have traditionally taken back their own employees after maternity
leave, switching companies or even industries might have a few side
benefits. Instead of returning at a level five years below their peers,
they can sidestep that ladder entirely, adds Shukla.
Recruiting
women may be a deliberate move on the part of the companies to tap into
new labour pools, but the women themselves often follow a more
inadvertent path into a second stint. Lakshmi Ramanujam, for example,
first signed up for a TWB course offered across the street from her
Bangalore home on a whim. “I decided to do the course just to see if I
could do it,” she says. After finishing the course though, the company
offered her a job.
“When I got the offer, I thought it was suitable,” she says. “It takes hardly three minutes to reach home.”
Larger
companies, too, have started pursuing women who are looking to get back
into the workforce. In March, the Tata group launched a “second
internship” programme for women, and earlier this month PepsiCo India
Holdings Pvt. Ltd started posting job openings specifically targeting
women.
Many of the companies are tinkering with things such
as flexi-timings and work location to keep women on board. Pepsi is
trying to figure out what work can be done off-site or part-time, and
retooling certain roles and policies to fit that description, according
to Nupur Bhargava, Pepsi’s vice-president of staffing. Software firm
Stratify Software India Ltd, part of the US-based Iron Mountain group,
followed through on its work-from-home capability and even let one
woman work from her home in Australia. “They may not be available 24
hours,” says Parveen Mittal, who heads the India operations in
Stratify, “but they are a tremendous asset.”
The ability to
step out for a parent-teacher meeting or bring their children to work,
say female employees at Stratify, are part of a work culture that keeps
them with the company.
But while mothers might first look
for flexibility in their second stint, the work itself might keep them
there. “I started off with notions of flexible timings, but I’m now
enjoying the challenges,” says Prema Radhakrishnan, a technical writer
at The Writers Block. Even if “leaving by five or six in the evening is
totally out of the question”.
Tips for going back to work
* Stay in touch with former colleagues
* Stay abreast of news and developments in your field
* Take a short-term course to brush up your domain knowledge. It will also beef up your resume
* Start out with a part-time assignment to make the transition easier
* Find alternative childcare options, and get your child adjusted to them before beginning work
-Surma Vallish and Sagarika Mitra, training managers,Stratify Software India Ltd