Creation of job opportunities for the economically & socially deprived women in the IT Industry

Author : Chetan Sharma
Date added : 2002-04-15

Brief Project Background

Datamation Foundation has been a strong champion of creation of sustainable employment opportunities for women from deprived and destitute backgrounds. The Foundation constantly plans, designs and implements innovative strategies that help fulfil above goal. Towards this end, the Foundation’s partnership with a Delhi based women’s group Nari Raksha Samiti (NRS) for over two years; has enabled a large number of women from needy as well as deprived backgrounds get sustainable, long-term employment opportunities with Datamation Consultants Pvt. Ltd. India’s leading IT services firm.

More than 29 very poor and victimized women-many of them from the ethnic minority background--trained in basic IT by NRS; have been appointed by Datamation .

The employment of women in the IT Industry even in the most developed countries is a challenge. More so in an orthodox, conservative society such as India where not only women have been traditionally confined to conventional roles of being a home-maker and play a subservient role to the male members of the family. Consequently the creation of employment opportunities for the women in the IT industry assumes a serious role as:

--The cost of living has increased substantially all over India and no longer it is feasible to run a household on the singular income of the head of the family

--Education and changing life-styles have altered the role of the women within the boundaries of the household. Even the women aspire to be independent, carve out an independent entity for themselves and create a mark for themselves in the society. Women also feel increasingly that they can combine both roles of being a homemaker and an independent workingwoman effectively without compromising on expectations from either of the roles.

--It is necessary for the women from economically & socially weak backgrounds to venture out of their homes and work in a free market economy that would provide them access to opportunities as well as enhance their life skills substantially. Social and economic tensions due to traditional roles of the women being implemented even in a modern society would result in social tensions as well as conflicts.

We also sought inspiration from the ILO World Employment Report 2001; the greatest potential for job creation globally is within the core IT sector. As IT usage increases in developing countries, the design and maintenance of the fundamental IT components will become among the most valued occupations. Despite lack of support from the Govt. We actively pushed our agenda of networking with the Indian women’s groups for ensuring that the women they select for IT education get the right skills. In its “Employment Survey 2001” the ILO has identified two types of skills needed for IT in enterprises:

“The first relates to a variety of foundation skills, such as the ability to learn, to communicate, and to analyse and solve problems, all of which are essential to work environments that rely on rapid innovation, and the interpersonal exchange and creation of knowledge. Beyond such skills, however are the technical skills related to IT itself, the need for which extends well beyond the IT sector to the economy as a whole”

Datamation was fully aware of the challenges that lay ahead of it while carving out employment opportunities for the poor and deprived women. With only 39.4% women enjoying literacy and with only 45.1% women from the technical and professional categories; and also only 23% women out of the total internet users base in the country and that too representing only a small, educated urban elite class; we at Datamation quickly finalized our “gender involvement in our ICT projects” blue-print.

NRS has been in existence for over 50 years; however they have been plagued by inertia; lack of responsiveness, dynamism as well as both material & human resources; until the current Chairperson Mrs. Vandana Sharma resumed her charge. She was very committed to implement vocational education in many areas such as sewing, food-processing, knitting, embroidery, tailoring, gardening etc. We got in touch with her with our business-plan and discussed with her the viability of creating large-scale employment opportunities for the poor and needy women trained in IT. We convinced her as well as other authorities that given the high skills requirements for software programming, the lower ends of tele working such as data entry are more realistic possibilities for large number of Indian women.

We emphasized that the women working in data entry in India would earn more than 88% percent more than women with similar profiles working in the local jobs. Since the necessary telecom infrastructure has already been in place at Datamation by the help of the Govt.; the potential for placing NRS trainees in sustainable jobs at Datamation could be enormous. We also convinced NRS of our high sales growth enjoyed during past 3-4 years-we have grown 180% during last 3 years-profitability, our professional work environment, our continuing interest in the development of human & social indicators and our deep-rooted commitment to the gender development. Based on this track record, Vandana Sharma was motivated to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Datamation for the placement of women trained in IT in regular, whole-time jobs at Datamation.
Selection process at Datamation: We believe adversity has to be fought on an even ground and there should not be any compromise on the recruitment standards. We employ a very stringent recruitment process involving:

**Written aptitude and attitude test which tests apart from the knowledge of English language and common affairs, basic IT background. We also test the attitude of the applicant in the test where we evaluate the candidates:

-Ability to cope with the stress, strain of working in an IT industry; such as the ability to work long hours in the evening,
-Ability to interact with a large team on a single project,
-Ability to implement each & every instruction given by the team leader,
-Interest in learning new things and new technologies,
-Analysis of the motivation factors and attitude towards discipline, upkeep of machines and assets of the company

The testing of the basic IT knowledge involves testing of MS-Office-Excel, PowerPoint and Access databases; data entry speeds and accuracy is sought to be tested by applying some of the selection criterion and software developed by Datamation.

Only those who qualify in the written and the IT knowledge test; are allowed to meet the team of Supervisors and Managers for a personal interview and interaction. The candidates who fair well in the interview are then appointed and placed in an appropriate cadre/rank of the organization based on the appropriate rank & compensation package. We never comprise on our recruitment standards since we believe it would be a self-defeating exercise. Since most of our deliverables are in the commercial sector-all our clients are top-notch Fortune 500 companies such as Nestle, Federal Express, KLM, British Airways, Microsoft, GE Capital, Bank of America, HSBC, Scholastic, Walmart; we believe if we are not competitive as well as quality-driven; it would become very difficult for us to survive in the business.

Results

We have been successful in:

**Forging the first-ever partnership & collaboration between a voluntary organization and a commercial organization in the “vocalization of IT education & creation of employment opportunities” The Voluntary & Private sector partnership highlighted above at Datamation first started with the NRS; however since then also involves other reputable voluntary groups imparting IT education in the country such as Prayas, Action India, Nanhi Kali, Katha,

**Offering job opportunities to several deprived women from weak social & economic backgrounds (currently we employ more than 45 such women in our Delhi Office alone and balance 95 girls at our other offices across the country). Overall 25% of our work force comprises women from deprived backgrounds

**Creating a sustainable “partnership” model between the voluntary groups and private sector since the trainees from the voluntary groups comprise more than 15% of our overall work-force and over 55% of our women work-force

**Building capacities within the voluntary groups by sharing with them the record of each of every trainee recruited, analysis of strengths and weaknesses, attitude towards team members; and understanding of the IT education. Consequently the voluntary groups are also able to improve the quality of their IT education and benefit larger number of trainees on nation-wide basis.

**Controlling the attrition rate-the loss of employees to competition-effectively since we lose very few trainees successfully absorbed at Datamation.

**Evolving a mentoring, handholding mechanism for some of the most vulnerable sections of the society.

We would like to illustrate our success by the example of Ms. Gulshan Bano, 22-year-old women whose father is a painter and who has apart from her 18 other family members. She belongs to a very poor Muslim background since her father’s vocation is seasonal in nature and consequently his earning has been erratic and sporadic. At best of times, her father was earning not more than US$150 per month barely enough to feed & clothe her family comprising a physically handicapped Uncle, his wife and their children as well. Gulshan being the oldest child in the family went through secondary education at the Govt. schools successfully. She had a keen desire to learn IT and consequently she came to know about the free IT education, which NRS was imparting. She got in touch with Ms.Vandana Sharma-NRS’s Chairperson and based on her poor, deprived background she was admitted to the NRSs 6-month IT course. After successful completion of her IT course, she was asked by NRS to appear at Datamation for a recruitment test.

Gulshan underwent the recruitment test and qualified in the complex recruitment process. She was then asked to join the company. Initially for a few days, she underwent the mentoring & training process successfully; after which she was made part of a Hong Kong project that involved compilation of a database of Hong Kong High Courts, Criminals Court as well as Districts courts data of past more than 40 years. She was a part of a 120-member team. Due to her enthusiasm, good nature and spirit towards work she was able to show her mettle very soon and come to the notice of the Project Supervisors and Team Members. Consequently she was able to rise up the ladder and enjoy very quickly the benefits of a successful career.

Even within her very traditional & poor Muslim family; the injection of a second income was a big help and relief to all her family members. The additional income brought by her within her family has been able to impart better health care service to all her family members; apart from ensuring better nutrition and food for all her family members. Gulshan and her family members are very happy after she joined Datamation.

We are aware that induction of 140 women in regular jobs at Datamation from poor and deprived backgrounds recruited from voluntary groups is a very small “drop” in the ocean of poverty and unemployment. Yet we are relentlessly pursuing our agenda of creation of additional sustainable livelihoods and employment for more and more people from similar backgrounds-up from our current women work force of 25% out of 1400 whole-time employees we believe mapping with our growth rates we should be able to create more than 3000 whole-time job opportunities at Datamation. The networking partners with whom successful partnerships have been forged include:

**Nari Rakhsa Samiti (NRS)
**Nanhi Kali
**Prayas
**Arise & Shine Church International
**Katha

With our business growth and “business globalisation” we should be able to bring prosperity and happiness to the lives of many deprived women.

Lessons learned and advice: (Approximately 1000 words)

It is feasible to successfully forge partnerships between the private sector and voluntary groups for the “vocationalization” of the IT education. It is not necessary to teach whole lot of new technologies and complex techniques to the trainees; but it is critical to apply the knowledge learnt to commercial day-to-day work.

We have also learnt that we need to relentlessly pursue our agenda of creation of employment opportunities for the poor and deprived women very actively if we have to survive the social pressures. The growing disparities in the incomes and life-styles would ultimately cause significant social unrest and social tensions. If the gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots” is no bridged then it would be very difficult for the civilization to survive; worst of all a developing society such as India will not be able to survive at all. Hence we at Datamation are pursuing an agenda of creation of more than 3000 whole-time job opportunities within the course of next 2-3 years.

Another lesson we are learning is it is not sufficient to create employment opportunities. It is necessary to create sustainable livelihoods as well as improve the standards of living of the people if they have to rise in life and grow in their own standards of living and enjoy better quality of life.

Large number of networking partners also helps in forging long-standing, reliable and mutually beneficial relationships in which all stakeholders such as the commercial enterprise (Datamation in this case), voluntary groups and the trainees stand to benefit substantially.

Lessons

It is feasible to successfully forge partnerships between the private sector and voluntary groups for the “vocationalization” of the IT education. It is not necessary to teach whole lot of new technologies and complex techniques to the trainees; but it is critical to apply the knowledge learnt to commercial day-to-day work.

We have also learnt that we need to relentlessly pursue our agenda of creation of employment opportunities for the poor and deprived women very actively if we have to survive the social pressures. The growing disparities in the incomes and life-styles would ultimately cause significant social unrest and social tensions. If the gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots” is no bridged then it would be very difficult for the civilization to survive; worst of all a developing society such as India will not be able to survive at all. Hence we at Datamation are pursuing an agenda of creation of more than 3000 whole-time job opportunities within the course of next 2-3 years.

Another lesson we are learning is it is not sufficient to create employment opportunities. It is necessary to create sustainable livelihoods as well as improve the standards of living of the people if they have to rise in life and grow in their own standards of living and enjoy better quality of life.

Large number of networking partners also helps in forging long-standing, reliable and mutually beneficial relationships in which all stakeholders such as the commercial enterprise (Datamation in this case), voluntary groups and the trainees stand to benefit substantially.

Development Impacts

Creation of sustainable livelihoods in the IT industry amongst the weaker and deprived sections of the society has been our biggest accomplishment. Even though we have started with some of the lower end jobs at Datamation for these trainees, we have intentions to go up the value chain for these trainees very quickly.

Women are already working actively in the areas of software development; and the basic requirements for these are college education, good analytic ability and proficiency in an international language such as English. Network administration and maintenance is another area for which there is already demand within emerging market countries among private sector and government institutions that need skilled personnel to manage their networks. More job opportunities exist for women in IT education and training as education is a traditionally a female field; and the flexible hours of a trainer may appeal more to women with families. Women are most represented in IT education and training followed by sales and marketing.

Efforts will be made at Datamation to increase the demand for and the supply of women in formal IT-sector occupations beyond those perceived as culturally acceptable for women. Strategies will be utilized to reach employers, families, and women themselves. Girls and women would be informed about the well-paid job opportunities for which they could qualify in the future.

We also intend offering affordable housing through hostels, families, or shared flats with other young women which would help overcome the obstacles of finding housing in the urban areas such as Delhi and Bombay.

We also intend offering equitable and sustained advanced IT training at all levels including system design, networking, software development, content creation, web development, information management, maintenance, and system management.

We are also committed to improving their access to the Internet and overall technologies. Overall we are committed not only to the creation at the first stage employment opportunities for the women; but ensuring their long term, happiness and sustainable careers by:

**Offering them access to continuing education both in IT and other disciplines
**Offering sustainable careers which would make lives easier for themselves and for
Their families
**Offering special benefits such as full-paid maternity leaves, appropriate working conditions during the pregnancy stages and after the birth of their child
We are infect currently negotiating with several Govt. agencies about the possibility of setting up of crèches or “day-care” centres that can look after the children.

We are ultimately inspired by the “World Development Report 2000/2001: Attacking Poverty, p. 118” which says “Poor women face a double disadvantage in access to resources and voice-they are poor and they are women” and we are sure our carefully, well-crafted model of enduring partnership between the Private sector and the Voluntary Groups for the creation of sustainable jobs for the deprived women in the IT industry in India is replicable as well as scaleable elsewhere in other countries as well.

Project Information

Organisation : Datamation Foundation, VIMAL-SHREE
URL : http://www.narirakshasamiti.org
Total budget in US$ : -
Country of activity: India [IN]

Are there any partners involved : yes
What is partners role?: NRS has been imparting IT education to needy and poor women including dowry victims. Datamation has been employing these IT graduates in regular commercial projects for reputable international as well as national clients. This partnership between a private sector company and an NGO for helping the poor and needy women in unique in many ways and possibly is the solution for the creation of jobs amongst the poor and needy people in the IT industry

Contact Information

Chetan Sharma
csharma@giasdl01.vsnl.net.in
B-12 Swasthya Vihar,
Delhi-110 092
India

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