Gender-oriented CSR of Wipro and Infosys led to Best Practices for SDG 5

Corporate action on SDG 5 (achieve gender equality and empower all women) calls for gender-specific HR KPIs such as retention, flexible working, returning to work after a break for women at different levels of an organisation.

Gender-oriented CSR practices

Offering flexible work options, leave and re-entry opportunities to positions of equal pay and status are other positive steps companies could take. The gender-oriented CSR of Wipro and Infosys have led the way in India in this regard. Their initiatives have gone on to become industry-recognised best practices for many other Indian companies.

Wipro WoW

Wipro adopted a life-stage based approach to its gender equity initiative programme called Women of Wipro (WoW). In 2017, there were over 15% women in managerial positions. WoW is now an industry-recognised programme and a leading best practice. It enables the careers of high potential women employees in middle management by providing them a forum to get mentored by senior leaders. The fourth batch of the programme recently concluded in the year 2017.

Women in Technology Forum aims at encouraging women technologists in Wipro and increasing their visibility through internal and external forums. Wipro-sponsored participation of women in IEEE summit, Grace Hopper Conference and internally launched, a digital hackathon: International Women’s Hackathon for women technologists in Wipro.

Women of Wipro (WoW) speaker series–senior women leaders from client organisations conducted open connect sessions with women employees of Wipro under the aegis of WoW Speaker Series. Various initiatives under the WoW programme have led to higher female engagement as measured by Employee Perception Survey (EPS). Gender diversity is maintained with over 30% of employee strength being women.

A Day Care Centre for employees’ children were inaugurated in Hyderabad and Bengaluru. This will continue to be a key focus area for the coming year, to evaluate tie ups or opening in house daycare centre in other locations.

With regard to thought leadership and Advocacy for gender diversity, Wipro has participated in various eminent forums with bodies such as SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management), NASSCOM, Catalyst, NHRDN (National HRD Network). Catalyst and Wipro co-hosted a Round table on ‘Strategies to Retain Mid-Career Women’.

Infosys IWIN

Infosys Women’s Inclusivity Network (IWIN) is an employee resource group for gender inclusion and works towards creating a gender-sensitive and inclusive work environment for women employees. IWIN develops them for managerial and leadership roles, thereby maintaining gender ratios at all levels in the organisation. This gender-oriented CSR enables the advancement of women executives by providing greater flexibility, exclusive training, mentoring and experience sharing programmes for developing stronger networks.

IWIN partners with gender networks and forums across the globe to benchmark practices specific to the development, engagement, growth and retention of women employees.