Winning the War for Talent in Emerging Markets. Sylvia Ann Hewlett

underlying cause of resentment was a sense from our focus group participants that their bosses displayed greater sensitivity about after-hours calls to time zones in North America and Europe and that their schedules habitually got short shrift. “Thursday evenings (the start of the weekend here) are often destroyed by conference calls, as are Fridays,” one UAE-based woman said. “They say, ‘Sorry, sorry, but it's really important.’ It often is, but essentially they make a joke out of it. There is no respect for boundaries.”

      The extended workdays and capriciously scheduled conference calls that come with a multinational job are reasons that public sector jobs look so attractive, with more than 80 percent of BRIC and UAE respondents applauding their benefits. The UAE labor laws, for example, restrict local companies to a maximum eight-hour day; employees in the public sector have an even shorter schedule, typically from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.⁷ That's half the amount of time that Claudia routinely puts in.

      Exacerbating the pressures of the onerous day-to-day schedule are the protracted commutes endured by many of women in our research. Traffic jams are the bane of urban life in the cities where many of the women of our study live. IBM's 2010 Global Commuter Pain Survey ranked cities 1 to 100 for their commutes.⁸ Based on factors such as traffic, road rage, and gridlock's effect on drivers' ability to get to work, São Paulo ranked 75, New Delhi 81, Moscow 84, and Beijing topped the charts at 99. More than 40 percent of the Moscow respondents have been stuck in traffic for at least three hours, and nearly 70 percent of Beijing commuters have experienced traffic so bad that they turned around and went home. Sizable percentages of commuters in the worst-affected cities said they would choose to work more if their commute time could be reduced.

      Although many women bemoan the hours wasted in these extreme commutes, others note the toll on their ability to work. In the IBM survey, 95 percent of drivers in Beijing say the traffic has negatively affected their health. “It's just time-consuming and stressful … awful roads and awful traffic,” said an IT manager in India, adding, “I am so much more productive on work-from-home days. I work better and longer.”

      This was a common refrain, and one employers should note: avoiding traffic by working from a satellite or home office could enhance productivity and improve morale. Flexible work arrangements and work-from-home options are still a nascent idea in emerging markets. In some countries, such as Brazil, laptop computers are expensive and even when employers supply them, crime is so prevalent (as we discuss later in this chapter) that walking down the street with a laptop case is an invitation to be mugged. More significant, though, is the huge premium placed on face time in BRIC and the UAE. Women who are already dogged by the workplace biases described later simply can't afford to give their critics any more ammunition by not being at their desks when everyone else is.

      BIAS AND STEREOTYPES

      Since becoming the HR director for the Brazilian operations of a multinational pharmaceuticals firm, Andrea has become accustomed to feeling that she's always on trial.

      My male colleagues test me a lot. They ask questions or try to test your knowledge or how self-confident you are on the issue under discussion. It's different from the way they interact with their male peers. They try to go deeper and deeper into the details. I think it's not just because I'm the first woman to hold this job but a combination of being a woman and being younger than they are. There's a sense of “Let me test this little girl to see if she really deserves to be in this place.”

      What I've learned from this is that I always have to be 150 percent prepared. Before having an interaction with them, I try to think about all of the questions and all of the resistance that might come up during the conversation. It's like I have to prove myself twice as much as if I were a man.

      The subtle forms of discrimination faced by women in the workplace have been the topic of much scrutiny, particularly in the United States, and courses on “microtriggers” or “microinequities” are the cornerstone of cutting-edge corporate diversity curricula. On top of the unconscious biases that no doubt exist in workplaces the world over, professional women in the BRIC countries and the UAE face overt and explicit prejudice. In India and China, more than one-third of our respondents—both women and men—believe women are treated unfairly in the workplace owing to their gender. In India, the number is a whopping 45 percent for both sexes.

      More than half of educated women in India, nearly half of their counterparts in China, and 40 percent of Brazilian women have encountered bias severe enough to make them consider scaling back their career goals or quitting altogether. Russia is the exception, in part owing to a Communist legacy that integrated women into the workplace better than elsewhere in emerging markets (see figure 2-3).

FIGURE 2-3

      Percentage of women who say bias is strong enough to push them out of the workplace

      Workplace biases in emerging markets appear in a range of “flavors” that vary by cultural context. In China, for example, business discussions and decisions are often negotiated in informal settings—over drinks after work, during cigarette breaks in the course of the day, or at extracurricular sports events—settings that are difficult for women to participate in as equals. An accounting professional based in Hong Kong laments, “It's hard for women to develop clients in China, because a lot of business involves drinking after hours,” something working mothers typically avoid in order to cherish their scant hours of family time.

      Similarly, vodka is a time-honored business lubricant in Russia, a key ingredient in nurturing the trusted partnerships that were the only way to do business under Communism. Even in today's open market, business relationships in traditionally male-dominated industries like manufacturing, engineering, and mining are still built in the banya, or sauna, and sealed with vigorous drinking. “That's where the decisions are made, in that close male community,” says Galina, an executive whose multinational employer operates in those fields. She notes, “It's just not appropriate for a woman to go into the sauna with ten men.”

      In India and the Middle East, where traditional gender boundaries remain entrenched, women also need to exercise caution to maintain their reputations. Participating in activities such as smoking or socializing in predominantly male environments, especially in the evening, is frowned upon. “I don't stay beyond 8:30 p.m. when the men go out,” says one female executive in India.

      Beyond general gender bias rooted in cultural and social practices, our survey results also reveal specific workplace biases confronted by BRIC and UAE women. More than 40 percent of our participants have faced bias associated with executive presence and communication style. This can take a number of forms, from demeaning or personal comments from male colleagues and clients about their appearance to assumptions about women's ability to be effective in a business setting (see figure 2-4).

FIGURE 2-4

      Most commonly experienced biases in the workplace

      Women also contend with conflicting social and professional expectations of proper behavior. In India and China, for example, women are often expected to be submissive and reticent, attributes that penalize high-performing women at work. Many women in our research felt crippled by this cultural bind, struggling to achieve self-confidence and the ability to demonstrate authority in the face of societal opprobrium. “As a woman brought up in India, you have to be likeable, you have to be liked. You have to be soft, you have to be polite, you have to listen to other people, you have to hold back a little,” observed Padma, an Indian finance professional. “And none of this works in the corporate world.” Others in her focus group agreed, with one participant noting, “We may be a square peg, but we will have to fit into that round hole.”

      This sense of not fitting in is pervasive among