In tune with this year’s theme for International Women’s Day, there cannot be any difference between gender and opportunity to support women
“On Women Entrepreneurship Day, we collaborated with women associations and planned a special marquee event for them to network, and participate in mentoring opportunities with other successful entrepreneurs.”
Jayati Singh, Chief Marketing Officer, Tally Solutions
The world just observed the International Women’s Day on 8th March. The Day is a momentous occasion and a reminder to commemorate the immense contributions of women to our society. The day also marks a call to action for celebrating women’s achievements, raising awareness about women’s status and accelerating gender parity. The theme for International Women’s Day 2023 this time is “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”. To be able to leverage digital technology for the further betterment of women and other marginalized groups, we need more women contributing towards digital innovation. When women actively participate in digital innovation, they come up with solutions and ideas that empower other women.
In commemoration of Women’s Power in IT Channel Business, we have come up with a special feature on leading Women Leaders in Channel Business. In line with that, we spoke to Jayati Singh, Chief Marketing Officer, Tally Solutions.
In an exclusive interaction with SME Channels, an inspiration and a role model to other aspiring women, Jayati offers insights into her perspectives on gender equality, how her organisation provides a women-friendly work environment; initiatives undertaken by her for promoting women’s power; how women can climb to leadership positions in channel business; and how to break the gender stereotypes; and much more. Edited Excerpts…
As a society, do you think we have been able to ensure gender equality? What needs to be done to attain this?
Gender roles and stereotyping the concept is an outcome of many years of social and cultural conditioning and it a mammoth task to shift or change the thinking behind this ideology. This being said, the needle of change and evolution has definitely moved in the positive direction. Many educational institutions, workplaces, and other public domain organisations are talking about how to drive gender equality. However, we are still far from this thought. Breaking the mind-set, perspective, and deeply ingrained gender stereotypes in people’s thoughts will take time. Just like this year’s theme for International Women’s Day, there cannot be any difference between gender and opportunity to support women. Giving them the equal right as men will need greater sensitization in our own homes. This can come from the way we raise our kids or how schools instil respect, or at workplaces where there is a focus on creating and nurturing environment to help and support women through life stage changes.
Please shed some light on your work environment. Would you dub it women-friendly?
As our female workforce continues to grow, we are implementing more HR policies and interventions at the individual and functional level to attract, retain, and cultivate a diverse and inclusive workplace for women within our organization. Company policies like offering six months of maternity leave, 30 days of paternity leave, adoption leave, menstrual leave, learning and development programmes, and gender sensitization programmes to sensitise all genders towards empathy and understanding are things that we actively work on.
As a brand, what are you doing to promote woman power?
Tally is known to stand up for small and medium businesses. From the past 35 years, we have a lot of women employees and thousands of women customers who collaborate with us. Our objectives can be reflected in some of the key initiatives undertaken like the MSME honours activity- A recognition platform for MSMEs across geographies within a special category for women who’ve been remarkable entrepreneurs against all odds. Similarly, on Women Entrepreneurship Day, we collaborated with the women association and planned a special marquee event for them to network, and participate in mentoring opportunities with other successful entrepreneurs. Apart from these, we also curate educational programs on financial literacy for all entrepreneurs in partnership with regional and national associations.
In the IT Business, there are still very few women in leadership positions in Indian organizations. How do you look at this as a successful woman?
Women in leadership positions are present in majority and organisations giving this opportunity to women employees will gradually see a lot of difference in planning and strategy building techniques used for the Company. The pandemic has brought about the confidence to work in a hybrid culture or work from homes. I am sure this will eventually enable women who were contemplating dropping off the workforce to think twice.
On your journey as a career woman, have you ever faced gender stereotyping?
I think most women at some point or the other face gender stereotyping in their work place. While I was fortunate enough to have been with organizations that took gender diversity and inclusion seriously, it did take time for people to be to more sensitive and aware about gender equality. Having said that, I personally also believe that ‘we- as women’ too need to work on not portraying ourselves as victims in most cases but instead raise concerns and opinions as required and drive towards the new change.
Working women are still juggling with challenges at workplaces, what should they do to overcome those challenges in order to be successful?
There are many challenges working women face at workplaces. During this situation, I urge women to share more about their work across various platforms by having personal interactions with their seniors at work. Additionally, having someone you can depend on who can mentor you can helping parting empathy to your fellow employees.
How do you ensure work-life balance?
The concept of work life balance depends from person to person. It is all about your personal choice and the discipline you have as an individual and how you can set boundaries and organize yourself to work in a seamless manner. Another major factor to create a balance in your work and personal life will be to avoid imbalances and misses in one’s life.
