Future Jobs2Equal India

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The project will support Indian companies in improving practices and policies at work resulting in better, inclusive, and respectful workplaces. This will enable higher recruitment, retention, and promotion of women at Indian workplaces. Under this project, IFC will – 1) Establish cross-sectoral platform India Gender Collaborative (IGC) by bringing together key multilateral partners (World Bank, UN Women, ILO) and 50+ identified member companies to enhance gender equality outcomes in the market. This platform will address barriers to improve the private sector’s ability to recruit, retain and promote women into leadership positions, create an enabling work environment and build a strong pipeline of board and senior management-ready women. Through the Collaborative, IFC will demonstrate the business case for gender diversity and inclusion to private sector companies in a middle-income market by leveraging IFC's experience globally and in Asia, secure commitment from companies to improve gender diversity and inclusion in their workforce, and support companies to realize these commitments by providing recommendations, and guidance and tools to improve workplace policies and practices to recruit, retain and promote more women in the workplace. The Collaborative will be a timebound (12 months) action-oriented working group of senior leaders with influence and decision-making power to address gender gaps, especially in the Indian private sector. 2) Enhance women’s employment within at least six private sector companies (select IFC investee companies) through firm-level in-depth advisory. Through in-depth advisory, this project will enable employers to address challenges associated with hiring, promoting, and retaining women employees, advancing women into leadership positions, and tackling gender-specific barriers that drive employee absenteeism and turnover. Each deep dive gender advisory will include conducting a diagnostic to identify gender gaps, highlighting the business case for closing those gaps, proposing solutions through recommendations and action planning, and implementation support to help firms put recommendations into action. IFC will document the project, its outcomes and impact and capture lessons learnt. Select good-practices will be captured and disseminated publicly in the market to catalyze the private sector in India to improve gender diversity and inclusion in the formal workforce.