Women’s Day: India needs to create level playing field for its women, says Urvee Juneja, Chapter Lead, Lean In India

Lean In Initiative: International Women’s Day would be incomplete without mentioning some incentives that have been working towards empowering women and helping them break the barriers. One such initiative is Lean In, which has been Co-Founded by Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg. The mission of the initiative is to help women achieve their ambitions by bringing them together in a manner where they can learn from each other. The foundation was started after Sheryl released her book Lean In, in which she spoke about personal stories, highlighted gender differences with the help of research as well as gave advice to women to help them reach their goals. The foundation works by facilitating the formation of small communities, called Lean In Circles.  The idea behind this is that while women need to lean in and take challenges to fulfil their ambitions, they do need someone to rely on. Since the professional space is still full of bias and gender barriers, these circles aim to act as safe spaces where women can speak to each other and share their struggles, while also giving and getting meaningful advice and celebrating each others’ wins, kind of like a support group.  These circles can consist of any women, be it women who have known each other from before or have met via the Lean In community, and they meet mostly once a month. Anyone can create a circle and lead it. As per the organisation, these circles are also great for professional advancement since they also encourage skill building. So far, over 50,000 circles have been created in 188 countries with the help of Lean In, the platform has said.

Urvee Juneja is the Chapter Lead for Lean In India. For more than 5 years, she has been working to support women to achieve their career ambitions. She was invited by Sheryl to represent India at the Lean In Regional Leaders meet in California. Urvee is a Senior Strategist with multi-industry exposure in Banking, Technology, Aviation and Life Sciences. She has worked in the UK, USA and India and has led Strategy functions at Citi, ICAP and ADP in New York. Urvee is currently the Global Transitions Leader for Life Sciences portfolio at Genpact and leads digital led transformations and transitions for Life Sciences portfolio. On the occasion of International Women’s Day, FinancialExpress.com spoke to Urvee Juneja around the state of women in workplaces in India, the impact of pandemic on women’s work-life balance and how Lean In is helping in creating an equal world. Excerpts:

What is the state of women in Indian workplaces?

Not only have more women lost jobs compared to men during the pandemic, but also fewer women are returning to work. The number of women actively looking for work each month reduced by 3 million between 2019 and 2021, says the latest bulletin from Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) and Centre for Economic Data and Analysis (CEDA). CMIE data shows that urban India had 22.1% fewer women employed in 2021 than in 2019 as per a recent survey. Average female employment in urban India in 2021 was 6.9% lower than 2020 and 22.1% lower than the pre-pandemic year, 2019. India has witnessed longer periods of school closure than other countries. Trying to manage home chores along with home schooling and child/elderly care has taken a toll on women’s participation in the labour force. Additionally, the gender gap in education and skills, the burden of unpaid work, and lack of safety and freedom of mobility negatively influence women’s morale. There is a need for India to find ways to recognise and institutionalise sharing of care work between men and women, reduce the gender wage gap, and aggressively work towards creating a violence-free, level playing field for its women to thrive and become leaders in the economy.

How is Lean In helping women achieve their ambitions and work to create an equal world?

Lean In is a community founded by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg that empowers women towards their ambitions and foster inclusion in the workplace. Lean In India is the official national chapter for Lean In in India. Lean In India aims to contribute towards encouraging more women in leadership positions, through peer circles, campaigns, collaborations and events. Our aim is to – “Increase representation of women in the workforce by enabling and empowering them.” It is about helping to solve challenges as women are trying to get ahead in their careers and create more inclusive workplaces where women of all identities are supported and empowered. Lean In runs awareness programs such as “50 Ways to fight Bias” – an initiative that helps women combat the biases they face at work, “IamRemarkable” workshop – a Google initiative that strives to empower women and underrepresented groups to speak openly about their accomplishments at workplace and beyond to change the perception around self-promotion.  Lean In is also big about the concept of ‘Circles’- small groups of women coming together to share their experiences, build new skills and cheer each other on. India has 400+ such circles throughout the country with a membership base of more than 4000 members. Lean In India, in particular focuses on running campaigns such as “Leadership Series” – a campaign that brings leaders from different walks of life to share their life stories and words of wisdom, “Restart Your Career” – aimed at helping women get back to corporates post sabbaticals, “Leaning In and Lifting Up”- to mentor and coach mid-level men and women in corporate. In addition, Lean In India partners with Corporates to run corporate circles and help employees at the workplace to lean in to help them grow and evolve. Lean In’s simple yet concrete initiatives around the world are helping to address inequities and march towards a more gender equal world. 

Did pandemic make it tougher for women to maintain work-life balance with WFH?

Work life balance is becoming increasingly important to deal with demon COVID because it has thrown all our routines out of whack. Women are working double and triple shifts to cater to their new normal. Therefore, It is becoming increasingly important and critical to sustain our productivity as we are all trying to put a method to this mayhem. Due to roles of men and women in our society (both nationally and internationally), primary responsibility for being the caretaker falls on women and these responsibilities affect the professional lives of women more than it affects professional lives of men. Blurring lines between work and personal space is only making it harder for us women as our homes become the new offices.  

It is not easy to manage a demanding career with a happy family life. Working women all around the world walk a tightrope trying to juggle between the demands of work and family. It feels like juggling many balls and having our share of good, bad and ugly times – some days you will eat the tiger for lunch and other days the tiger will eat you. I have had my share of struggles and still deal with bouts of stress trying to raise 2 girls while working from home. Flexible work schedules, reasonable timeframes and a culture of empathy are becoming increasingly important to strike a chord between our personal and professional lives. 

Tell us about your journey, challenges you faced and how did you overcome those.

After my master’s. I started my career with a Corporate in the UK. And then as luck would have it, transitioned to New York after about 3 years in the UK. Worked with Corporates such as ADP and Citi in NY doing Strategy for them and navigated my way up the Corporate ladder. And then life decided to throw a curveball at me after about a decade in the US and we as a family decided to transition to India. I had just had my 2nd daughter and I decided to take a short break to make sure we settle well in India before I take up my next stint. Picked a strategy role with a start-up doing tech solutions in the Aviation domain (something I had never done before). Then with my quest to do bigger, better things in my life, I decided to move on to take a leadership opportunity with Genpact leading digital led transitions and transformations for their Life Sciences portfolio.  As my passion project, I am also the Chapter Leader for Lean In India – a Sheryl Sandberg organisation helping women achieve their career ambitions by planning events, campaigns and peer meets. That’s my 2 cents back to the community to help other women around me who aspire to do something in life.  

I would say it has been quite a bumpy ride to get to where I am today. When I transitioned to the US, I had to be at home for many months before my work permit could be arranged and I could get back to the workforce. But my never dying spirit kept me going in a new place, new country and new environment and eventually things started falling into place when I got my work visa and my first job in the US. Then motherhood happened and we all understand it comes with its challenges – my little one was sick many times, managing her kindergarten schedule, managing home chores along with a demanding role took a toll on me but I kept hanging in there although this thought of quitting crossed my mind many times. And then stability did not last for long when we as a family decided to relocate to India.  Settling in India took its own time. If that was not enough, my first stint in India in the Aviation industry made me realise that I was in a heavily male dominated industry and for all those meetings with folks in the industry, I was the only woman in the room. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop me from dreaming big. I started leaning in and that helped me stay committed to whatever I was doing.   

I really wanted to break into a role that involved being at the bleeding edge of industry – the world Digital fascinated me and I so wanted to be part of the digital growth story. So, I geared myself, put my act together and leveraged my network and my experience to get through a dream role in a Genpact. They say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade but sometimes you have to let go and trust before your heart will give you the recipe, so that’s exactly what I did.