The community meet, Pune chapter was held on 06th February at the Tivoli Garden in The Poona Club.
Smita Khanna, the head of Sales and Hiring at Sheroes, warmly welcomed everyone and gave an overview of SHEROES. She shared her own journey of getting back to work after a 5 year career break. She offered support to the women gathered saying “If you have taken a break and are looking to get back to work, we are there to help you.”
She then handed over the floor to Kunjal Kamdar, Social Media Strategist at Polaris Consultancy and Services. Kunjal admitted at being a little overwhelmed as the sole man at the meet. He shared with the group some of the hurdles face by recruiters in implementing diversity hiring. From companies not wanting to hire women to team leaders who don’t want women, he voiced hurdles that many women at the meet had faced.
Leading a highly interactive session, Kunjal got everyone talking about the problems women face when they look for work after a break. He spoke about some common beliefs the corporate world holds onto when it comes to the women workforce, for instance, thoughts surrounding the belief that "women are too bossy!" Or that "women don’t come back to work after maternity leave!"
He asked for the guests response to these.
The participants were so enthused by the discussions that they called for a break in the session to get to know each other. Kunjal graciously accepted this interruption as the 50-odd women introduced themselves. What followed was a revelation of the fantastic array of women who had come for the meet - from film makers, entrepreneurs, social media strategists, technical writers, content writers to software professionals. Many shared that they had taken a break in their career and were now looking for flexi or work-from-home opportunities. Most others had come to the meet to network and meet like-minded people.
The team from Mesh also shared their unique concept of co-working spaces where entrepreneurs and freelancers could find a support system.
Everyone found people they wanted to connect with. Before winding up, Kunjal had one more exercise for the group. He asked everyone to break into smaller groups and brainstorm about what policies would they, as founders of a new company, would implement to make the workplace more women friendly. This led to a very animated ten minutes; everyone pitched in ideas to make the work place more conducive to women. The teams then shared some inspiring thoughts from - training support to bridging the knowledge gap after a sabbatical, project based hiring, per-hour working options, family friendly policies so that fathers too could help with child-rearing.
When the session ended, everyone agreed it was a productive Saturday afternoon as they left with many new connections and ideas.
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