Women better professionals, firms woo fair sex

With increasing number of women climbing the competitive corporate ladder, companies seem to be leaving no stone unturned to lure them and are even offering existing employees an additional bonus as much as 25 per cent for referring a female employee.

The latest trend for India Inc is that it seems to be taking in larger women workforce as they bring their own perspective for things and have emerged as better professionals in any situations, experts say.

"Women bring in their own perspectives and also a diverse set of views to flow onto the table. We are giving a lot of preference to women and give them equal opportunities in all programmes," Oil exploration and production firm Cairn India director (HR and administration) P Senthil Kumar told PTI.

Companies have also introduced certain women-centric incentives in order to attract more females to join the companies and also as a part of their retential policies.

There is a lot of importance for cultural values in our country and that is one of the main reasons, we are providing more flexibility for women at work.

Due to our initiatives, the population of female employees in the company has gone up to about 21 per cent last year as compared to just 13 per cent in 2004, information technology provider CSCs Associate Director (Human Resources) Anuj Kumar said.

Apart from flexible working hours, CSC has also an exclusive website for its women employees called Planet W. The site acts as a discussion forum to exchange ideas and get useful tips on diverse issues.

According to Kumar, the CSC's website was launched somewhere in August 2006 and has gone down well with the firms employees. Moreover, different courses on dieting and personal grooming are also offered for the fairer sex, he added.

Further, the company also provides regular health check-ups including those for screening breast cancer.

Majority of the firms in the country empathise with female employees and are also given different kinds of incentives. In many cases, female employees are considered to be better professionals, said Anand Varadarajan, a partner at Mumbai-based management consultancy firm ESP Consultant India Pvt Ltd.

Further, women are also recruited for operations side than just technical work, Senthil Kumar added.

Recently, Internet major Yahoo! had launched an exclusive website for women. The site offers nine categories ranging from food, parenting to fashion and beauty. IT also provides a blog platform for the users to share their thoughts.

You can count on us to bring attitude and personality and find humour in almost every topic we cover, Yahoo! Editor-in-Chief Shine Brandon Holley had said.