“Gender balance can help productivity and efficiency at workplaces”

Participants at panel discussions to mark Women’s Day stress on the need to change mindset of recruiters for inclusive workplaces

Ahmedabad, 9th March 2020: Higher productivity and better efficiency are among the key benefits an inclusive workplace can lead to, experts said at panel discussions organized to mark International Women’s Day on Sunday.

Novotel Ahmedabad hosted two panel discussions on Gender Equality, which brought together women leaders from different fields to discuss women’s rights, the challenges women face, leadership, and other aspects. The panelists for the discussion on “Inclusive Workplaces” were Prof Nigam Dave, Director, School of Liberal Studies, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Preeta Chag, Director, Communications, CIMS Hospitals, Jayakrishnan Sudhakaran, GM, Novotel Ahmedabad, Mona Gogia, AVP, Regulatory Affairs, Cadila Pharmaceuticals, and Gopi Trivedi, Patents Attorney, YJ Trivedi & Co.

The panelists spoke about how an inclusive workplace, with a balanced representation of men and women, can lead to better efficiency and boost productivity. They stressed on the need to create a sense of belonging among employees, especially women employees, and also reiterated the need to change mindset of recruiters, employers, and employees to ensure that workplaces become inclusive in the true sense.

Featuring an all-women panel, the topic of the second panel discussion was “Leadership and Women”. The panelists included Nehal Vyas, Senior IT Manager, Dishman Carbogen Amcis, Dr Chetali Bansal, Senior Medical Expert Obstetrician-Gynecologist, Lipi Khandhar, Founder, Know Your Rights Foundation, and Sangeeta Thaker, AVP, International Business, Cadila Pharmaceuticals, Neha Maloo, Start-up Founder, Toy4rent.The discussions were moderated by Lipi Goyal, Emcee and Actor.

The penalists expressed concern at the lack of adequate representation of women in corporate boardrooms, and cited examples of how women-led companies and organizations are leading the change to usher in gender equality. They also called for the need for women to change their own mindset before expecting others to do so.

In his closing remarks, Jayakrishnan Sudhakaran, GM, Novotel Ahmedabad, said, “At Accor, we have RiiSE, an international network for gender equality and diversity, with the objective of ending stereotypes, everyday sexism, and discrimination, and to pursue our commitment to combatting pay inequalities. Accor has already made tangible progress in relation to equal pay and female representation, and is committed to promoting gender equality.”

Diversity is a powerful driver of performance, and it is important to involve men and women at the highest level in the decision-making and execution process.

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