More than half the workforce in India feel they are ‘treated unequally’ due to their physical appearance, according to a survey of employees and recruiters. This comes at a time when India Inc. is focussing on diversity and inclusion in workplaces.
A survey found that 55% of employees experienced bias at the workplace on the grounds of gender, ethnicity, and appearance, while one quarter of the employees thought that the management was not committed to meeting the needs of employees with disabilities.
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“With the rising quotient of millennials at the workplaces, companies are innovating the D&I policies. The market demand is growing for diversity beyond the gender ratio. For example, a lot of organisations are sculpting their D&I programs for the physically disabled and LGBTQ candidates. It’s overwhelming to see such progress in both public and private offices in our country,” said Ramathreya Krishnamurthi, Business Head, TimesJobs & TechGig.
Even though Indian corporates are progressively adopting diversity and inclusion at workplaces, the survey conducted by TimesJobs, reveals that employees today still feel awkward or are conscious while openly expressing their sexual orientation and cultural values at their workplaces.
Almost 29% of the employees hesitate in doing so because they think it might hamper their career. A good 26% felt that their colleagues would make fun of them. And about 23% were worried that they will be judged by their co-workers.
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“If people in powerful positions continue to hire and cast only people who look like them, sound like them, come from the same neighborhoods they grew up in, they will never have a greater understanding of experiences different from their own,” Beyoncé Knowles said in a recent interview. With this, she lifted the lid off the controversial ‘inclusive’ aspects of society and workplaces at large.
The rat-race of being ‘the best employee’ has shifted to being ‘the best employer’. In that bid, many employers roll out glossy initiatives to promote diversity and inclusion at their work floors, but how much of these pay off in the real sense?
In the survey, about 52% of employees mentioned that their managers treat all the employees equally regardless of their background. About 48% of respondents said that managers treated them differently, because of their physical appearance and gender.
Ironically, 65% of the hiring managers who took part in survey said that their employees show a commitment to diversity and inclusion policy. About 46% of recruiters said that the primary objective of diversity programs is to give targeted development opportunities for employees coming from different backgrounds.