GENDER PRIMER ON DIVERSITY,
EQUITY AND INCLUSION
For South Asian Enterprises
About the Gender Primer
The Gender Primer has been created with the purpose of helping decision-makers in South Asian corporate enterprises conduct a self-assessment of their priorities and gauge effectiveness of their company policies. The need for a Gender Primer stems from the lack of gender inclusivity in the South Asian corporate spaces, due to which corporations are unable to capitalize on the benefits that increased diversity brings to the workplace. With the help of this Primer, organizations can self assess their firm with regard to gender inclusivity and devise programs that benefit all persons equally, and help achieve better gender representation.
Urban Indian Women: Employment and impact of COVID-19
61%
of Indian women felt less
optimistic about their career prospects
92%
of women in working age demography participate in unpaid domestic work
60%
of highly educated women are not working in India
5 Stage Action Framework
The Primer provides a 5 stage gender - inclusivity framework which includes- Baseline Gender Inclusivity Assessment and Benchmarking, Pre-facto Policy Formulation, Policy Analysis, Pilot Implementation, and Post-Facto Evaluation. The Primer enables you to toggle through the key stages and the different buckets under each. Further, each bucket includes questions that are necessary to be asked throughout the process.
This Primer fills an important gap in established gender equality materials, providing corporates with an intuitive and straightforward framework for enhancing the effectiveness of diversity, equity and inclusion interventions.
- Ravi Verma, Regional Director, ICRW
The Primer is a comprehensive yet practical instrument, and it is the first of its kind, allowing leaders to assess where their company policy stands in terms of DEI as well as creating genuine improvements in their company’s programmes.
- Mitali Nikore, Founder, Nikore Associates
Need for a Gender Primer
Women’s representation and satisfaction within the workplace can lead to improved productivity and a reduction in attrition. This can be highlighted by looking at a firm's journey towards inclusion and diversity, and tracking the effects the change / introduction of policies has had on the financial and non-financial aspects of the company, such as Returns on Investment made, level of satisfaction among employees, general welfare, increase in participation of target groups, reduction in pay gaps, and whether industry benchmarks have been achieved.
Gender Primer Launch Event
The Gender Primer for South Asian enterprises was launched by the Nikore Associates team on 15th March 2022 at The Quorum, Gurugram. The three-hour event started with our founder, Mitali Nikore, introducing the Gender Primer to all the panelists present in the room and via the hybrid model. The panelists consisted of several eminent personalities from diverse sectors, who shared their views on the Gender Primer backed by insights from their own professional experiences. Towards the end, a brief question-answer session was conducted wherein students from various colleges across the country clarified their queries regarding the Gender Primer, followed by a closing address by our founder, Mitali Nikore. The speakers were delighted to be present at the event and were extremely appreciative of this initiative taken by the Nikore Associates team, calling it a “necessary first step towards achieving gender inclusivity”.