
Developing Women Leaders
Client
A software company offering software as a service (SaaS)-based, On-premises software and services in areas including cloud computing, IT service management, automation, IT operations, and mainframe.

Business Context
Business Need
The expectation was to develop a comprehensive programme for women employees across levels with an intention of making them understand the value of:
Solution
Step 1
Pre-assessment
- The three months journey of ‘Enabling a culture of Equality and Inclusion’ kick started with a curtain raiser followed by pre-program interaction with few of the participants. A curtain raiser was conducted to ensure that women employees fully understand the power and benefits of this programme, and also what each module covers.
- After the curtain raiser the nominated participants had to answer a set of questions and the pre-assessment.

Pre-study interactions:
The purpose of the pre-programme study was collecting data for designing and customizing the intervention and understanding the expectations of the women participants and their perspective of women leaders within the company. The questions and interactions were framed accordingly.
Result of pre-study interactions:
Participants confessed that their organization was a great place to work and had women friendly policies. But they all felt the need of ‘more collaboration’ and guidance to direct the path to professional growth along with being assertive in certain situations.
It also helped in the introspection and increase participant’s urge to attend the sessions.


Pre-study observations:
It was observed that the participants were keen and looking forward to attend the sessions stating they aimed to consistently climb the ladder of success and give their best.
The assessment questionnaire captured the data from the individuals as well as their managers. The questions addressed the competencies based on following themes-
Accountability, handling emotions, power of collaboration, hidden biases, confidence and credibility, assertiveness and developing gravitas.
Based on the questionnaire data few of the areas of strengths of the group were identified and categorized into:
Based on the pre-assessment, some of the areas of strength were:
Commitment, team player, hard-working, and readiness to take challenges. And the areas of development were: taking positive feedback from others and handling the conflicting situation.
Step 2
Development Journey
The journey comprised of seven well-defined modules with Group Coaching sessions. The modules focussed on the following factors:
The module sessions consisted of live facilitator led virtual modules, which included virtual learning tools like chat, annotations, breakout rooms, whiteboards, polling, word clouds, non-verbal feedback, private chat with the facilitator, videos, images etc.
These were used to create differentiated instruction to cater to differences in needs, levels and learning styles of the participants and to provide them with a flexible, experiential and engaging virtual learning experience to the participants.
Contents of the Modules
In total 7 modules of 3 hours each were identified.
The modules were conducted by different facilitators and had Group Coaching sessions in between the modules.
The coaching group was divided into four sub-groups of 4-5 people each. Each sub-group had to undergo two Group Coaching from PLI coach to:
Key Differentiator
Post-Assessment
The post program assessment recorded improvement in the below areas -
Participants Feedback
Despite personal limitations, few participants ensured that sessions were not missed and were looking forward to all the modules.
Participants Feedback
Client Speaks
“Our team understood the importance of well-being and the intervention helped them identify ways to de-stress themselves. Also, the new ways of training delivery with the help of pods and digital connect ensured the connect between themselves as well as facilitator in between the modules.”