Indian companies are increasingly looking to hire employees who are returning to work after a period of leave for various reasons such as maternity leave, sabbatical, care and health issues. Many sectors such as information technology (IT), pharma and finance are hiring professionals returning from career breaks, as companies find that new recruits can be on-boarded quickly, and can take up senior roles with minimal need for guidance. are capable of. , industry insiders said.
Career breaks for women can range from 2–15 years, while for men typically range from six months to three years.
“Companies traditionally viewed long maternity or caregiver breaks as a gap in resumes, and prejudices often denied women jobs. However, over the last 5-7 years, especially Since the pandemic, genderqueers have come back from health-related or caregiving breaks,” said Aparna Mittal, founder of the Samana Center for Gender, Policy and Law.
For example, in 2022, IT firm Capgemini launched a referral program called Captivate by Cloud and Infrastructure Services (CIS) to target professionals who had taken a career break, irrespective of gender. Radhika Ramesh, Executive Vice President, Global Distribution Center Head, CIS India, Capgemini said, “We have decided to make the program not just restricted to women, but gender-agnostic.”
So far, 200 employees, of whom 20% are men, have been covered under the programme.
Typically, women take career breaks for personal reasons such as maternity leave or to care for dependents or close relatives. These can generally range from a few years to 15 years.
Capgemini said such breaks were fewer in men’s resumes at 3-4 years, as many decide to return to corporate life after working for startups or taking a career break, for example. “In fact, as soon as the program went live, we got 300 referrals within the first half hour,” Ramesh said.
The move to hire returning professionals in the corporate world comes at a time when many companies are going slow on hiring but at the same time need senior or mid-level employees who require minimal training Is. Professionals with corporate experience fit the bill because they don’t require hand-holding and can perform operational roles across sectors.
In 2021, pharma company AstraZeneca launched a second career program and partnered with organizations working to get women back to work. What was surprising, however, was that women as well as men who were on a career break submitted applications.
Amarpreet Kaur said, “The program was largely targeted at women, but we saw resumes of male candidates who had taken a break due to the need for caregivers, had gone on for higher studies and had taken up jobs after the break. were looking for.” Ahuja, Country Head, Human Resources, AstraZeneca India said. Over the past few years, India Inc has been making efforts to bring women back into the workforce. The efforts have intensified since many women dropped out of the workforce during the two years. Gender and diversity specialists, and human resources heads said they are often offered senior roles because career breaks can happen at later stages.
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