About the authors: Nirat Bhatnagar (nirat@belongg.net) is a Partner at Dalberg Advisors and Founder of Belongg, a platform that brings discrimination-free services to various marginalized communities. Abhishek Ghosh has been the co-founder and Sushanth MP, a Secretary of QUEst at IIMB (quest@iimb.ac.in), a club promoting awareness and acting as a support group for Diversity and Inclusion at IIM Bangalore.
Diversity at Indian business-schools: a mixed story thus far
The IIMs are India’s leading business schools. Thousands of students graduating from the IIMs each year go on to occupy important roles in leading sectors such as strategic consulting, investment banking, investing, general management, public and social impact, academia, startups and so much more of what dramatically shapes our lives! A McKinsey report on LGBTQ+ Voices: Learning from lived experiences (June 2020)[1] lays out the business case for D&I in no uncertain terms:
- Attracting the best talent: ~40% candidates rejected job offers from company not seen as inclusive
- Retaining the best talent: LGBTQ+ women who are not out at work are 2x as likely to leave their current employer within the next year as ‘out women colleagues’
- Maximising skills: Inclusion at the workplace fosters skills such as a stronger Emotional Quotient (EQ), more empathy, increased productivity, and lower mental health concerns
- Greater marketing RoI and acceptance: Inclusive marketing helps cultivate a brand’s story when coupled with tangible and sustained effort to uplift marginalized communities
To adequately equip such leaders, there is a need to deeply integrate diversity and intersectional inclusion within the IIMs. Two reasons that particularly stand out are:
- So that student of certain identities (based on their gender, sexual orientation, race, caste, disability) do not face any prejudice or bias during their IIM experience. Often students find a safe space with friends and faculty at school, which they often don’t find in their own homes
- So that these future leaders, in India and outside, learn to deeply understand Diversity and Inclusion (D&I). Over their professional careers, this would help them shape team culture, policy, and earn social capital from customers, employees, and partners in their organizations
A study on ‘Fostering Pride in Higher Education (Mar 2021)[2]’ reflect first-hand stories of the incredible odds faced by those wanting to be ‘out’ on campus. 92% faced mocking statements from peers, 59% faced bullying and 29% faced social exclusion.
Also, in Indian colleges, 13-21% of students still believed homosexuality was “unnatural, a disease, or both”[1], aggravating the already mental health challenges faced by queer folk. For many queer folk, the lack of familial support often underlines the dire need for a comfortable and accepting environment, especially for those not financially or socially privileged to have access to such social spaces.
The need for a formal focus on D&I at Indian business schools
Formally recognized D&I initiatives at Indian B-school campuses are essential for seven reasons: to attract and retain top students; to significantly improve on global rankings; to ensure the physical and mental well-being of all students, faculty members, and support staff; to reflect the culture of espoused by top recruiters; to ensure the institute is training future leaders who are able to lead global multicultural organizations that hold diversity and intersectionality as core tenets; to prevent a colossal loss in productivity and output at the macro-level that this exclusion leads to, and finally and perhaps most fundamentally, to ensure more equity, compassion, and humanity, especially in a post-COVID-19 world.
The catalytic role that inclusion-focused clubs can play
QUEst, IIMB is a student-run program at IIM Bangalore, that over the years, has focused on the themes of inclusion for members of the IIM Bangalore community belonging to gender and sexual orientation minorities. Over time, QUEst, IIMB is seeking to become intersectional in its inclusion approach by also including topics that pertain to other identity markers such as caste and disability.
Belongg is a social venture that seeks to bring discrimination-free services to people who would otherwise face prejudice and bias on account of their identity (gender, sexual orientation, race, caste, faith, disability). Belongg does this through interrelated initiatives that include the Belongg Literature Collective, the Belongg Research Collective, the Belongg Mental Health Collective, as well as the Belongg Student Program. Each of these programs focuses on complementary problems of inclusion using the tools of literature, research, psychology, and student engagement.
The Pan-IIM Inclusion Club Program
Belongg and QUEst, IIMB propose to partner to design and implement a program that would create “Intersectional Inclusion Clubs” across all the 20 IIMs in India and would drive high-quality D&I initiatives at these IIMs focused on the student community, faculty, and alumni.
The approach would be to create customized toolkits to set up and run such Inclusion Clubs and then engage with student and faculty volunteers across IIMs to launch these clubs while providing “shared services and shared partnerships” to these clubs based on specific needs.
A handful of IIMs, such as IIM Ally at IIM Ahmedabad, Pride of Joka at IIM Calcutta, Prism at IIM Tiruchirappalli, Spectrum at IIM Kashipur, have formally recognised clubs. However, D&I initiatives at the IIMs face challenges in terms of support from the wider student body and administration. Most D&I initiatives are mainly focussed on spreading awareness and understanding while doing little to create buy-in amongst leadership. For this, a business case on how the initiative can tangibly benefit most of the students, faculty and recruiters would need to be demonstrated. Being part of a larger network would help cross-learnings, support with organizing activities and enable corporates invested in equal opportunity hiring to reach out more effectively.
Outcomes
Through this program, we hope to get to the following outcomes across the entire network of 20 IIMs:
- Each IIM has an active Inclusion Club that carries out regular activities and programming focused on intersectional D&I topics
- At least 2,000 students, 100 faculty members, and 1,000 alumni sign up as members of these clubs put together and participate in this programming
- At least 100 events, workshops, initiatives carried out in a year by these 20 cells put together
- Noticeable change in behaviour, awareness, and understanding of D&I within the IIM Community due to this activity (measured through an annual survey)
- At least 20 global partnerships with global universities, companies, experts for this effort
This effort has been in the design stage over the last two months and will formally be unveiled by September 2021 and will seek to expand such activity to a large majority of the IIMs in India soon after enrolling more than a thousand students and allies as well as potentially more than a hundred faculty members in this effort.
An exciting initiative as part of this is the ‘Belonging’ case competition that QUEst, IIMB and Belongg are putting together at Vista 2021, IIM Bangalore’s annual festival, and are looking forward to ideas that participating teams come up with.
This effort would benefit significantly from partnerships with companies, business school faculty in India and outside, IIM alumni, and students, and we invite everyone to get in touch.
The imperative of truly putting diversity and inclusion in practice will only gain in prominence. This is an opportunity to create a platform to bring together students, faculty members, recruiters, business leaders, and social changemakers to tap into current momentum and help, what we hope, will be tangible and sustainable positive change.
[1] BCG-Pride Circle-IIM Ahmedabad, “Fostering Pride in Higher Education (Mar 21),” accessed on 15th Jun 2021, URL: India-fostering-pride-in-higher-education.pdf (bcg.com)
[1] McKinsey & Co., “LGBTQ+ voices: Learning from lived experiences (June ’21),” accessed on 12th July 2021, URL: LGBT workplace discrimination: Learning from lived experiences | McKinsey
[2] BCG-Pride Circle-IIM Ahmedabad, “Fostering Pride in Higher Education (Mar ‘21),” accessed on 15th Jun 2021, URL: India-fostering-pride-in-higher-education.pdf (bcg.com)
[1] BCG-Pride Circle-IIM Ahmedabad, “Fostering Pride in Higher Education (Mar 21),” accessed on 15th Jun 2021, URL: India-fostering-pride-in-higher-education.pdf (bcg.com)