“Equal Participation Of Women In Agriculture, Need Of The Hour”

Satender K Sighadia, HR Head FMC India & South-West Asia talks about the specific socio-cultural challenges in agriculture and related sector in India, especially low participation of women. Excerpts:

What changes would you like to bring to the hiring culture prevalent in the agriculture sector?

Unlike other sectors, the agriculture sector in India has not been able to reap the benefits of its culture of diversity. This, in a way, has limited the growth potential of the industry. As per a study by the Harvard Business Review (HBR), diverse companies enjoyed better overall financial performance. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) margins for companies with diverse management teams were 10 per cent higher than for companies with below-average management diversity. When we look at the historical hiring trend in the agriculture sector, it is largely dominated by male employees. Women form only around 10 per cent of the employees. Since a majority of the roles in the agriculture-related industry require the employees to travel extensively to meet farmers and dealers in the hinterlands, family members of the female talent have been less supportive of this. This has led to a lesser number of female students opting for agri-related courses which in turn led to a lesser female talent pool available for selection.

Agriculture has tremendous potential for growth in India and having equal participation from males and females is the need of the hour. Changing this trend will require multiple interventions at macro and micro levels, including, but not limited to, spreading awareness around career prospects for females, projecting role models from the industry to inspire the new generation, making the working environment equitable and inclusive for both the genders, awareness training for hiring managers, etc. We, at FMC, are committed to and working on this very cultural aspect in the sector through multiple initiatives.

How do you plan to control the attrition rate of women talent in your industry?

We, at FMC, strongly believe that we must strive to make the work environment inclusive and create a work culture thatw promotes merit-based high performance rather than based on opinions and biases. This would require a lot of time and effort from all of us. It would require reconditioning our thought processes, understanding the gaps that exist amongst the genders and then taking steps to make the playing field equitable.

What are the challenges you think women face starting from grassroots levels to the top rung in corporate management specific to this industry?

As part of our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion strategy at FMC, we keep communicating with our female talent to understand their challenges. Dealing with people having an unconscious bias towards women is the most common challenge. It is not only prevalent among the employees but also has been felt by women while interacting with farmers and customers. We also see a lesser number of women in middle management as well as leadership roles. One of the reasons women are not moving into the more senior ranks of organisations is that they need to have their own families: they have to raise children, and it's at this point that they leave the workforce.

As per a study conducted by McKinsey (What’s stalling progress for women at work? | McKinsey), a big reason for women leaving is that they end up more in staff roles (IT, strategy) compared to line roles (business-unit presidents, product management) over a period of time. The pipeline of roles that lead to ‘line roles’ have a much higher propensity to lead to the C-suite (a term used to describe high-ranking executive titles in an organisation) compared to ‘staff roles’. In the beginning, when people are hired, the proportion of line versus staff across genders is not materially different. However, over time, what you see is women disproportionately ending up in those staff roles that don’t lead to the C-suite. This trend needs to be addressed to be able to make meaningful progress.

What are the top skills in demand that you plan to look at for hiring talent?

Each role has specific skill requirements based on function, type of role, experience etc. However, a few competencies that we look for in all our hired talent across all functions are learning agility, accountability, inclusive behaviour, adaptiveness, innovativeness, and a positive attitude.

Is digital advancement going to create more and equal job opportunities for women talent in agriculture and allied industries?

Digital advancement is gender-agnostic and has equal opportunities for everyone. There’s no denying the positive impact of technology in agriculture with respect to improved productivity, better management of limited resources such as land and water, environmentally safe and sustainable practices and the like. Contrary to the popular belief that tech advancements such as the use of drones and precision agriculture tools including machine learning and IoT (Internet of Things) may lead to reduced jobs, these forces will in fact drive employment generation. Corroborating this is a recent World Economic Forum (WEF) report that puts the positive impact at a 1-1.5 per cent boost to the country’s GDP and the creation of at least 5,00,000 jobs in the coming years. 

Where does gender equity stand in meeting the rising pressure to retain the best talent as workforce disruption intensifies?

Gender equity is on top when it comes to our employees’ related priorities at FMC. Employee retention is one of the lagging indicators to measure employee engagement levels in any organisation. If an organisation has a culture which promotes transparency, gender-neutrality, inclusiveness, and meritocracy then it not only is able to have a high retention of talent but also attracts talent from other companies and industries.

Your goal is to have 50 per cent women talent across all functions by 2027. What is the progress on it? Do you plan on including any policies to reach that goal before the timeline?

Yes, this is a global target for FMC, and we are not only focused on it but also making great progress towards achieving it. I am happy to share with you that at FMC India, our hiring numbers as well as net female addition, have seen 100 per cent growth in the last two 2-3 years. From having female employees in single digits four years ago, we are now close to making a century. There are multiple steps that we have taken at policy as well as implementation level to achieve the same. 

To start with, at the talent acquisition stage, making a gender-diverse slate of talent available to hire from, including female interviewers as part of the interviewing panel, and giving higher referral amounts to employees for referring female talent. We have also reached out to agri-based universities and rolled out Internship opportunities as well as hired them as management trainees. To make sure the working environment is welcoming, we have periodic training for our employees across roles, tenures, and functions. 

We are also driving initiatives to create better awareness and interest among potential female talents through showcasing the ‘success mantras’ that the existing female leaders are following for growth and progress.  

In a span of five years, what roles do you foresee that will have the maximum participation from women talent in agriculture and allied industries?

To get the true benefit of diversity, we need to have equal participation from males and females across all roles and functions and restricting them to only a specific few will mean limiting their opportunities. If we have a narrow-minded approach and offer only a set of roles (office-based, data analytics), then we are not only indirectly creating a bias, but also denying the male population of opportunities in these fields. Our female population needs to feel that they are no less than anyone else and can perform a role at par with others and it is everybody’s responsibility to support them. Only then we will truly become a diversity-promoting industry.