Greater representation of women can make a difference to success of organisation: Ruhi Ranjan, Accenture

It’s the year 2021, and women have currently made significant strides in the field of technology. Not only are more women opting for STEM education, but are also now being recognised for their immense contributions to the field. Ruhi Ranjan, managing director, Accenture, Growth Markets Delivery Lead, Advanced Technology Centres in India, believes that a workforce that is diverse can actually positively impact an organisation. Read on to know more about her views on the topic.

DQ: What has changed for women in the field of technology? And what are the biggest challenges in the role of women being a leader?

Ruhi Ranjan: As rapid innovation continues to be a key success driver for organizations, there is a great need for a skilled workforce, irrespective of gender, to drive innovation at scale. However, driving greater representation of women in the workforce, and more importantly growing women to leadership positions has been challenging due to a few reasons, largely centered around social cultural considerations as well as conscious and unconscious biases. According to NASSCOM, the percentage of women in the workforce shrinks to a quarter at manager levels and declines to less than one percent at C-Suite positions as compared to half the workforce at entry-level. This underrepresentation of women not only means a talent gap at top levels, but also lack of role models for younger generation and a vulnerability to gender bias in work products.

While several industries have moved the needle on inclusion, creating and sustaining a culture of equality in its true sense will be key to retaining and driving greater representation of women in the economy. Further, women must continuously invest in learning and push through the barriers to reach their full potential.

DQ: What can organizations do to reduce the gap and encourage women techies in leadership roles?

Ruhi Ranjan: Workplace diversity is a fundamental requirement for innovation. Yet, moving the needle on inclusion is not easy. Creating an enabling environment at the workplace and driving cultural shift will be instrumental to help women stay in work and progress. Further, women themselves have an equal responsibility to remain intentional about their careers and focus on learning continuously to stay relevant.

Our research shows that people are more successful in organizations which are intentional about creating equality. The three main pillars to create a culture of equality are:

Bold Leadership – Leaders must truly believe that culture matters and prioritize it and benchmark progress toward a culture of equality by setting and publishing targets. For example, we announced our goal of achieving 50/50 gender equality across the company by 2025. Today, women represent over 40 percent of our workforce in India

Comprehensive Action – Leaders need to have meaningful, continuous dialogue with employees to capture feedback and drive change. Examples of these are our deep and continuous investments in developing women in leadership and for leadership roles. We have multiple programs like Hi Tech Women – which encourages women to take on technology certifications, Grow Women in Leadership for holistic development with focus on technical and business acumen.

Empowering Environment – Organizations need to give employees the responsibility and freedom to be innovative and creative and cultivate ‘Culture Makers’- leaders who are more committed to building equal cultures. They need to find ways to bring leaders and culture-minded employees together to develop specific, actionable solutions. For instance, having informed, visible and vocal allies is key to achieving equality for our LGBT+ people. We have customized trainings and mentoring programs that enable LGBT Allies to become informed and vocal evangelists on the topic. As part of a huge organization, I have seen first-hand how greater representation of women can make a difference to success.

DQ: What’s your advice to women working in STEM?

Ruhi Ranjan: Building confidence in yourself and in your abilities is incredibly important. With rapid changes taking place all around us, the most important skill that a technology professional needs in this age is the ability to continuously learn and adapt. Beyond this, women must consciously build their intellectual curiosity, creativity, domain knowledge and soft skills as multi-dimensional capabilities will become a focus to meet future role requirements. I personally believe that success is directly proportional to the amount of effort one puts in, and I advise women to believe in the power of 5 Cs – Courage, Confidence, Content, Compassion, Communication.

DQ: How is Accenture encouraging women to study and pursue engineering positions?

Ruhi Ranjan: We have several initiatives in place to achieve this, across recruitment, retention, and growth. Today, growing digitalization presents tremendous opportunities for women in technology to position their expertise as a technology leader, tech strategist or architect, security consultant or Data and AI expert. At Accenture, growing the number of women in technology roles is a key priority, and there are early interventions. For example, our ‘High Tech Women Rise’ program focuses on fast-tracking the careers of high performing women at mid-career levels into the role of Technical Architects through training and mentorship. Similarly, our ‘Quantum Impact’ program where we are enabling our women to build their technology skills and overall leadership skills.

Beyond our consistent interventions to enable our women technologists increase their technology prowess and leadership skills, our Skills to Succeed initiative in India is empowering youth and women from economically weaker sections and persons with disabilities, who receive training in the skills needed in some high-demand job sectors. We conduct this program in partnership with NGOs and help to train those who are interested in pursuing a career in technology but may not have the access to relevant resources.

We believe the future workforce is an equal one, and our commitment to growing women in technology, both within Accenture and in the broader ecosystem. Reinforcing this belief, we started an inclusive internship program called “AARAMBH” in FY21, for women from diverse socio-economic background and Persons with Disabilities (all genders) with an aim to build the workforce of the future, in partnership with NGOs partners (Enable India, Anudip foundation, Katalyst and Dr. Reddy's Foundation)  and NASSCOM. In addition to this, some of our women technology leaders in the past have actively mentored women on multiple technology tracks as part of Women Wizard Rule Tech (W2RT) program at NASSCOM.