New Delhi: A new study by TimesJobs concludes that nearly 45% of the employees still experience unequal treatment due to their physical appearance. Let’s find out what more India Inc. employees have to reveal about the much-hyped Diversity & Inclusion programs at the various workplaces.
Key Highlights:
25% of employees think that their organisation’s management is not committed to meet the needs of employees with disabilities
57% denied that their companies openly recruited LGBTQ or disabled candidates in the organization
55% of employees still experience bias at their workplaces on the grounds of gender, ethnicity, and appearance
About 52% of employees mentioned that their managers treat all the employees equally regardless of their background
“If people in powerful positions continue to hire and cast only people who look like them, sound like them, come from the same neighborhoods they grew up in, they will never have a greater understanding of experiences different from their own,” Beyoncé Knowles said in a recent interview. With this, she lifted the lid off the controversial ‘inclusive’ aspects of society and workplaces at large.
The rat-race of being ‘the best employee’ has shifted to being ‘the best employer’. In that bid, many employers roll out glossy initiatives to promote Diversity & Inclusion at their work floors, but how much of these pay off in the real sense?
TimesJobs surveyed more than 2,000 India Inc. employees and hiring managers to find an answer to this question.
Even though Indian corporates are progressively adopting Diversity and Inclusion at workplaces, TimesJobs survey data reveals that employees today still feel awkward or are conscious while openly expressing about their sexual orientation and cultural values at their workplaces.
Almost 29% of the employees hesitate in doing so because they think it might hamper their career. A good 26% felt that their colleagues would make fun of them. And about 23% were worried that they will be judged by their co-workers.
What organizations say v/s what they really do
In the TimesJobs survey, about 52% of employees mentioned that their managers treat all the employees equally regardless of their background. About 48% of respondents said that managers treated them differently. On asking about the reasons for this mistreatment, these 48% respondents said the physical appearance of employees was the biggest reasons for unequal treatment. Another reason was gender.
According to our survey, nearly 57% of employees denied that their companies openly recruited LGBTQ or disabled candidates in the organisation. Only 42% of the India Inc. reported a yes to it.
Ironically to all the above data, among the hiring managers who took the TimesJobs survey, 65% said that their employees show a commitment to diversity and inclusion policy.
About 46% of recruiters surveyed by TimesJobs said that the primary objective of diversity programs at their organisation is to give targeted development opportunities for employees coming from different backgrounds. About 29% of recruiters said that their agenda with diversity programs was to recruit candidates from different backgrounds, and almost 16% said that the motive of such programs was to develop a pipeline of diverse leaders.
“With the rising quotient of millennials at the workplaces, the companies are innovating the D&I policies. The market demand is growing for diversity beyond the gender ratio. For example, a lot of organisations are sculpting their D&I programs for the physically disabled and LGBTQ candidates. It’s overwhelming to see such progress in both public and private offices in our country,” said Ramathreya Krishnamurthi, Business Head, TimesJobs & TechGig.
