UpGrad aims for 50% women participation by 2023

UpGrad, Asia's largest higher edtech company, has unveiled a plan to reach a 50% women participation rate across its workforce by 2023, while improving its policies to support more women in the workplace. The announcement came as the India-headquartered organisation said it recently climbed the gender diversity (GD) index to record a 40% women participation rate across its total workforce.

"We started small but now with each passing quarter, we continue to expand our teams across locations and add more women employees to our ecosystem. We are committed to achieving a 50:50 GD index by 2023," said upGrad co-founder Mayank Kumar.

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As the company continues to hire more women, chief human resources officer Saurabh Deep Singla said it also plans to improve its Talent Management framework to hone new leaders.

"It is important we also upgrade our Talent Management framework to empower them with requisite learning and career development sessions for creating women leaders and business owners for continued growth," Singla said.

UpGrad’s announcement comes as Deloitte Global's report in February found that only 17.1% of board seats and 3.6% of chair seats in India are occupied by women. In addition to developing new leaders, Singla also said UpGrad plans to upgrade its policies to improve work-life balance for women employees.

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"We are also enhancing our existing women-centric sabbatical policies that will allow them to prioritise family for accelerating work-life harmony. It's our commitment and constant endeavour to build an all-inclusive ecosystem that overlooks gender biases and promotes equality and active participation for such leaders across the board," Singla said.

UpGrad has 31 offices across the world, including North America, APAC, and EMEA. The organisation said it has plans to deploy a global diversity and inclusion strategy and introduce women-friendly policies that can accommodate cultural nuances and enhance the work environment.

"While we continue to encourage our women employees to take up more non-conventional roles within the organisation for sharper career growth, we feel a centralised strategy will help propel inclusivity amongst our employee pool and help us build wider opportunities for career returners," Kumar said.