Discrimination at the Workplace Disrupt by Deliberate Design

"We tend to measure gender diversity in terms of the number of women at the workplace and lull ourselves into a false sense of achievement, for numbers do not reflect the whole truth"

- Dr Aquil Busrai

Advait Kurlekar: A recent study estimated that discrimination at the workplace has affected over 250 million people worldwide, making it a very critical topic for our times. Even as I grappled with the word "discriminate" I realised that the opposite was "indiscriminate." And I am not sure which is worse. Over to HR guru Aquil Busrai for his thoughts.

Dr Aquil Busrai : Honestly, Advait, I would prefer the word "bias" over discrimination any day. Discrimination implies that it is a deliberate decision to push someone into a corner, but actually, that's not how the system works. I prefer the word bias for the reason that it is far more pervasive, unconscious and hard to detect because it is often the outcome of years and years of indoctrination, perception and pet theories. Therefore, the critical need to understand it. I would especially like to focus on gender diversity in the workplace. Typically, we tend to measure gender diversity in terms of the number of women at the workplace and lull ourselves into a false sense of achievement, for numbers do not reflect the whole truth.

If the female workforce were to be represented by a triangle, you would find most of them at the bottom rung, fewer still at the second rung and very, very few at the top. This means very few are actually in a position of decision-making and influence. Thus, we need to actively make policies that respect the biological need to raise a family and make women's re-entries into the workplace post sabbatical that much easier.

Moving beyond bias is a business imperative because bias affects business adversely. I'd like to share something that I discovered while helping to set up a factory for Motorola in 1994. Now, Motorola does not have trade unions, they believe that a system of respecting individuals does away with the need for unions. To that end, we studied the functioning of a few garment factories. Over 90 per cent of the workforce is female and the productivity is the highest, given that there are women supervisors, bosses and employees. We took some key learnings from there on how to bring in inclusion.

On the other hand, I had a different experience with a mid-size engineering firm. There were very few women employed with them and when I asked why, they shrugged and said: too much of a hassle. Now, this is what I mean by bias as a result of years of brainwashing. A call for resumes and an interview resulted in the application of a very suitable woman candidate for the position of a quality head. Yet they had their doubts and wondered if they weren't better off with a male instead? After all, in their words, he was "equally" good. This "equally good" bias is the one that results in inequality and makes it impossible for women to reach key positions.

Men feel that women want special concessions, but that is only a perception. That said, bear in mind that bias can't just be wished away. One has to actively work at it. At IBM, for instance, we decided to come up with the goal of taking the 16.7 per cent female workforce to 27 per cent over the next 24 months. Every quarter we reviewed the same. We weren't willing to be fobbed off with vague assertions of "oh there are no CVs in yet." We asked for hard numbers. How many resumes had come in? How many interested? When you ask for details, the answers come.

We, in HR, play a key role in shaping diversity especially by paying attention to gender diversity.

Isn't it unfair in a way, to make a conscious decision to say that X number of our workforce should be female-only or belonging to a particular group?

Aquil : Well, taking the number from 16.7 per cent to 27 per cent is hardly an imbalance in numbers. If I said my goal was 47 per cent, you could term it unfair. But steering the numbers to a more equitable field is a good thing. I must add here that at IBM, we then took the 27 per cent women to 34 per cent. The outcome was good. What I essentially want to say is that if bias is unconscious, guide them. If it is deliberate, then come down on the practitioners heavily.

"Working from home has done away with some myths that those who stay back late yield greater outputs than those who don't intellectually we have always known that but some perceptions tend to stick"

- Padmaja Alaganandan

Since the focus is on gender bias, I'd like to ask our next panellist, Padmaja Alagnandan on whether the current situation of working from home is the proverbial great leveller?

Padmaja Alaganandan : Working from home has done away with some myths that those who stay back late yield greater outputs than those who don't intellectually we have always known that but some perceptions tend to stick. However, with work from home, the focus is on what is delivered rather than the number of hours put in. That said, there's a lot of evidence that women are taking on a greater workload, especially when it comes to the running of the home.

As we inch back to normalcy, will those who are afraid to travel lose out vis a vis those who are able to get back to work immediately? After all, COVID-19 is a huge scare and until a vaccine is found, many will be afraid to expose themselves to it!

Padmaja : Once again, you raise an interesting point. But the way I see it, there's no going back completely to the old ways of doing things. One of the biggest myths that the Covid-19 pandemic has busted is that remote working is less productive and overall, unfeasible. Turns out it isn't the case at all. Sure, there are some positions and profiles where being present is indispensable but hey! We are able to manage. So my guess is that going forward we are going to have a mix of work from home with scheduled days at the office. It will be a combination. This new hybrid model will definitely change things.

What other kinds of discrimination would you (Harjeet) like to highlight?

Harjeet Khanduja: I'd like to raise a very fundamental theory here. See, we are basically programmed to classify information in a particular way and "discriminate" between various classifications and their attributes. That is how we remember and process information, that is how both machine learning and the human mind works. Discrimination takes various forms in modern day society, it's all around us. The other day I had taken an Uber, the driver was an old man of 60 or 65. We got talking; I asked him how come he was driving an Uber. He replied that he used to work in a company until such time as he was forced to retire at 58 the designated retirement limit. He had to retire from his job but could not find a way to do so from his responsibilities. The way I saw it: the guy had a skill. But he hit a certain age limit, and he was suddenly of no use in workforce. This happens to so many ageing professionals. As they grow older, the compensation drops so low, it's almost as if years of experience are not of any worth.

Education is another area of discrimination. Employers say: we want a full-time MBA, nothing else will do. I'd like to ask: are we looking at a skill or degree? The issue is that we are way too many people in India, hence, we filter all the criteria that acts as discriminators. What then happens is that way too many times we miss out on the core issue on hand.

Sometimes, nationality can be a problem too. I remember working for a company that acquired a US company. Quite a few of the workforce was from India. Even as we concluded the merger, a senior lady walked up to me and said, in our community, they don't quite like the idea of working for an Indian company!

So be it age, gender, nationality or region, discrimination has different forms. And it costs. Another form of discrimination is not quite understanding what the other person does. I had a friend in sales. One day, he asked me with genuine curiosity, yaar, you HR guys what do you do anyway? The way he saw it, he couldn't quite wrap his head around the fundamental question of why HR had to be paid. That is, until I explained in detail what I actually do. That's when the penny dropped. So yes, discrimination also happens for want of genuine know how, until such time as you understand what people actually do, their role and value that they bring to the table.

"In India, even as we talk about the rights for LGBTQ and go beyond the binaries of gender, looking at a world beyond Section 377, the question of legal rights and representation comes in"

- Amita Karadkhedkar

Let's talk about discrimination post maternity. Over to you Amita.

Amita Karadkhedkar : First of all, thanks for selecting the book "Born a Crime" to bring home the pain of discrimination. At a time when the murder of George Floyd is followed by the worldwide "Black Lives Matter" movement, discrimination in every form, needs to be called out. In societal terms, discriminating against someone or telling them that they don't belong, is a sin. In corporate terms, it is a crime. Lets' be very clear on that. No justification will work.

To talk about the return of women post maternity, there's a lot of positive news. Various organisations are organising the Work Wapasi or Back to Work movement. Best of all, this sabbatical is not really considered as a break in career and is increasingly becoming irrelevant to annual performance ratings or career progression. Under the Indian law, women get six months of maternity leave. MNCs and big organisations can afford it; the smaller ones can't but they need to do it. On a negative note, the tendency is to say that lets' not hire a woman for she will go on to take a break for her maternity; a classic case of doubt triumphing over the potential of the said candidate. This is where the majoritarian role comes into the picture; a culture based on the thought process of the dominant gender. Certain processes are then dictated by self-righteousness, a mindset that is often intolerant of divergent facts and thought process. It's my way or the highway, so to speak. That's where we fail to see people as people and discount women when it comes to on-ground equality as well as in policy formation.

"Discrimination between entities is a normal human way of processing information. What we need to do is to be vigilant towards the bias. Then the point is how we will take things forward"

- Harjeet Khanduja

Coming back to Harjeet, what are the forms of discrimination that exist in MNCs versus Indian companies?

Harjeet : First things first. I'd like to clarify the point taken up by Amita and corroborate on the same. When I talk about the theory of discrimination, by no means am I justifying it or debating its criminality. All I am saying is try to understand the core theory. Discrimination between entities is a normal human way of processing information. What we need to do is to be vigilant towards the bias that automatically comes. Then the point is how we will take things forward.

Suppression is a crime, no two ways about it. At the same time, solutions come about when we understand the nature of the bias.

To address your question, when it comes to the work culture in the US, it's a fear of the outsiders taking away local jobs. In India, discrimination can happen within boundaries of region, language, religion, gender or caste. The colour of the skin is a big deal; it took an uproar for a big company to change the name of its product from Fair and Lovely to Glow and Lovely, thereby acknowledging that bias against skin colour is not a good or desirable thing. But that has been our culture so far. And cultures influence discrimination.

However, the one antidote against discrimination is personal knowledge about the said person. When you get to know someone on a human level, you begin to understand how they are. Abroad, they have found a powerful way to do this. An increasing number of white families are boldly adopting black kids. That's how they are solving that bias.

On desi shores, we solve the bias through reservation. I agree that the reservation is traditionally seen as a bad thing. But that's how you have women and other hitherto under represented folks in the workplace.

Amita : Adding to what Harjeet said, information about different groups is power. Corporate history points that out in different ways. When they first launched airbags, for example, the product failed. That's because airbags had only been tested around male bodies and not female ones. When voice recognition facilities for gadgets was brought in, it failed to recognise female voices.

In India, even as we talk about the rights for LGBTQ and go beyond the binaries of gender, looking at a world beyond Section 377, the question of legal rights and representation comes in. As does the issue of their inclusion and well-being. When will the day come when a gay man will be able to talk of his husband and give him the same visibility as a heterosexual couple?

The talk against discrimination now needs to include all this and more.

When you have such a considered approach towards who you would like in your workforce, the question arises: whither meritocracy?

Padmaja : Organisations are a microcosm of society, and often, in consumer-facing organisations consumers like to see their own aspirations reflected. Having different people at work is a good thing. Gender diversity, for one, yields positive outcomes. But it won't happen overnight. Source, develop, build diversity for the sake of fair representation. Review the same over 3 to 5 years; I am not saying that one can having exact representation everywhere but in case of man to woman ratio, certainly. You need a minimum eco-system. There are different tools to measure diversity: from representation at various levels to career progression, feedback and pay equity reviews.