It was a day out for around 225 female employees from various offices of IBM India. These women who included technical leads and managers, got together for a day-long session woven around the theme, 'Power of You'. The initiative was the effort of the India Woman's Leadership Council (IWLC) that started in March this year at IBM. 

So, why this focus on bringing together women employees? “This exercise is an effort to enable networking, training in leadership skills and mentoring,” said Kalpana Margabandhu, Program Director at IBM India Software Labs, who heads the IWLC. 

She said that a lot of women employees face the tussle of maintaining a reasonable work-life balance. 

“It is meant to help them manage this balance and also enable them make right choices and attract talent.”
Margabandhu said that most women employees missed out on opportunities to network. “We should not look at the work-life balance as a problem area. Instead we are trying to help women get over their inhibitions.”

Women comprise around 23% of IBM India's total staff strength. The company organizes programs focused on women on a regular basis. Some of these include networking sessions at the country, regional and Asia Pacific level; round table discussions and celebration of days such as International Women's day and Mothers' Day. IBM employees such as Meera Prabhu, Country Manager, Marketing and Dr Asha Goyal, VP, Quality, IBM are profiled on the company's intranet, so that women employees can look to them as role models. 

Apart from encouraging women within the organization, IBM is also trying to encourage girl students at the high school level (ninth standard students) through math and science camps held at IBM offices. Selected students spend around 15 days learning and doing projects such as building a robot and learning how things work, at the company. 

This program is aimed at inspiring girl students' to take up science and tech stream of learning. According to Janet Perna, GM, Data Management, IBM Software Group and the company's head for Women in Technology initiatives, “The pool of skilled technology workers is shrinking, partially because fewer women are entering the industry." 

CYBERMEDIA NEWS
BANGALORE

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