Working women – the transition from hard working to ambitious to “just a job”

This post is the result of a water cooler conversation between 3 ladies that were analyzing why people were being judged by how long they stay at office! Strangely I had nothing to contribute …

I have been working for 6 years now. Not a long time by any standards. We were a bunch of 23 graduates who joined the company in my batch. In the early days of my career, I used to work 12-hour days. So did everyone else in my batch. By everyone else I mean both the guys and girls. I was very hard working, ambitious to scale the career ladder quickly, willing to learn and take up additional responsibilities. Let’s be clear on one thing. By hard working I mean, “staying additional hours” at work not just to complete the work assigned but also to take up anything additional to keep the onsite-offshore arrangement going. Weekends meant being at work. As this article titled For Some Techies, an Interminable Workday states, these schedules are built into Indian’s DNA. It is the Indian bachelors (like us then) that have started the trend of staying late hours at work for lack of anything better to do at home and to impress the boss projecting oneself as going to any lengths to get the job done. Now that’s bullshit to the same person 6 years later! Let’s face it. I got married a couple of years later. So did some more from my batch. Now my days start at 9:00 a.m. and end at 6:00 p.m. This is where the differentiation starts in the working pattern of men and women. Both men and women tend to go home early for a few months after the wedding. If I’m not wrong, this transition is natural and every person goes through it. Some survive smartly and some succumb. Work patterns change overnight and yesterday’s “hard working” person is suddenly being branded as “not committed” and leaving “on time” from work is labeled as “leaving early”. No one but us is to be blamed, as we were the ones who started this culture.
However, men return to their old habits of staying late while women return home early. In the case of women, over the next few years their responsibilities towards family increase. I know it gives one a high to have a high-powered career and a family. The truth is it is difficult to “have-it-all” and it comes at a price. Either you have children and reject promotions or you chose career over family. Apparently, many women are choosing not to be “supermoms” these days… It can come as a jolt to sit at home after working for long. There is an obsessive need to feel wanted and keep yourself occupied. I guess when women are in the age of 30-40 years when they are juggling their personal and professional lives, in many cases their professional lives takes a setback. And when they are ready to back in the rat race, their male counterparts are far ahead. This probably explains why there are fewer women executives in the top rung of any organization.

I’m not sure how you can ever address this problem. Well you may ask why do we need these women at all in the workforce. Think going to work tomorrow morning and you don’t find any women at all..does that sound good? You need women for “diversity” I guess. “Work-life” is the buzzword harped at many organizations to woo talented women to join their work force these days.
An
interesting compilation of articles from Harvard Business Review on the topic and how organizations should strive to attract talented women with obligations at home, to join their workforce.

Here’s what I think Indian organizations should do to retain women ….
1. Promote “work from home” concept for REAL. The current infrastructure does such as poor telephone connections and broadband network prevent that. Hopefully that should change soon for the better.
2. Encourage consultants to take calls from home just like their onsite counterparts do.
3. Most importantly, any culture is top driven. So it is important for the top brass to start going home early. Many people I have noticed stay back late because their manager is still around!
4. Have flexible hours. Leave it to the discretion of the employee to determine when, where and how they get their work done. This would solve a lot of woes. As the HBR article stated –

Some women don't require reduced work hours; they merely need flexibility in when, where, and how they do their work. Even parents who employ nannies or have children in day care, for example, must make time for teacher conferences, medical appointments, volunteering, child-related errands—not to mention the days the nanny calls in sick or the day care center is closed. Someone caring for an invalid or a fragile elderly person may likewise have many hours of potentially productive time in a day yet not be able to stray far from home. For these and other reasons, almost two-thirds (64 percent) of the women we surveyed cite flexible work arrangements as being either extremely or very important to them. In fact, by a considerable margin, highly qualified women find flexibility more important than compensation; only 42 percent say that "earning a lot of money" is an important motivator. In our focus groups, we heard women use terms like "nirvana" and "the golden ring" to describe employment arrangements that allow them to flex their workdays, their workweeks, and their careers.

5. finally, on a lighter note, we Indian Software engineers need to get a life. There is a world beyond the walls of your organization. Walk out, develop some hobbies..do anything. don't sit at work after 6:00p.m. This would solve half of our problems. Don't worry..if you don't get a pat on your back from your American customers that you are great..its ok for a while. Atleast you are living your life!

I’m sure by doing all this, the ambition that had died in many women will rejuvenate and then it would be the transition from hard working to ambitious to just a job to ambitious again!