Dista organized an #IamRemarkable workshop for women of Dista under its L&D initiative. The Google workshop aims to empower women and other underrepresented groups to celebrate their achievements in the workplace. Swaroop Gokhale, Unit Head HR- Google Business Unit, Persistent Systems and a Gold Tier #IamRemarkable facilitator, conducted the 90-minute workshop with women of Dista.
The workshop started by stating the statistics about gender equality and how the representation of women and other minorities is critical in the workplace. Swaroop deep-dived into the meaning of unconscious biases and gender stereotypes with a couple of exercises. The interactive session concluded with a thought-provoking exercise where women of Dista introspectively penned their achievements on paper.
Here’s a quick glimpse of the workshop that Swaroop Gokhale facilitated:
The #IamRemarkable workshop is designed to increase awareness of the hurdles women and underrepresented groups face in the workplace and how anyone can be an ally to help drive the required behavior change.
Two key goals of the initiative are to:
- Improve the self-promotion, motivation, and skills of women and underrepresented groups
- Challenge the social perception around self-promotion
“It is not easy to find your voice to speak up on your behalf, especially if you’re not in the majority. Gender modesty norms, coupled with impostor syndrome, can prevent women, in particular, from being proud and vocal about their achievements.”, said Swaroop Gokhale.
Vidushi Bhatia, VP – Product Strategy & Partnerships, said, “I thank Swaroop for a fantastic workshop that will stir conversations among the women of Dista and help them grow professionally and personally.”
Mrinmayee Materkar, Sr.Tech Lead, said, “Attending the #IAmRemarkable workshop helped me appreciate the person I am today. It helped me realize that I can talk about my accomplishments and that they will not speak for themselves. A sentence that struck me the most from our facilitator was, ‘It’s not bragging if it is based on facts.’ The workshop inspired me to encourage women in my circle to speak about their accomplishments.”
Dista has taken conscious steps toward building an equitable and inclusive workspace for all employees. “We have pledged to increase equity and make Dista a workplace of equal opportunities. To further this commitment to ourselves, we introduced a new Zenith award category in our annual awards earlier this year. ‘Superwoman of the Year’ aims to recognize and celebrate the most impactful woman in the company.”, added Vidushi.
Women representation at Dista is inching closer to 30% owing to our conscious efforts to hire diverse candidates for all roles and functions and encourage equity across the board. Earlier this year, we created a community for the women of Dista called ‘GoD+eSS’ (Girls of Dista + extended social sphere). The community comprises women employees of Dista, associated women family members of all employees, women partners, and customers, among others. It is a safe space where we have common workplace conversations, share knowledge articles, and promote allyship.
