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 Women office-goers are usually the butt of office
jokes. It is often said of them that when there are two women in an
office there are three groups. Ask any male office-goer and he will
immediately tell you that women are sloppy workers and that all that
they are more interested in powdering their nose at intervals,
gossiping near the coffee machine and that they pick up their bag at
the stroke of the appointed hour for departure to leave for home.
But the women at String Real Estate Information
Services prove all these false. The String Info women have ‘joined
together’ to form an exclusive women’s forum. That’s right. The 40
odd women of the company have come together, axing the concept of
groupism. They do not waste their time in idle gossip. They exchange
ideas, invite thought leaders to lecture them and, of course, find
time to hang out together – the operative word here being
‘together’. And they work just as hard as the man in the next seat.
This exclusive lounge is called ‘Chrysalis’
 “Chrysalis means the pupa stage of a butterfly,
like a protective covering, which forms the basic theme of our
group,” says Sweta Todi, assistant manager - Research & Transition,
and one of the founders of this forum.
This women’s forum is about 15 months old – the
company, which provides outsourcing solutions for the American real
estate industry, itself is about two years old - and has about 40
members. Women here are in their early to late 20s and mostly
single.
“We meet every Saturday and organise several
activities. We invite guest speakers to talk on various topics. We
also have competitions like drawing, singing, and ad zap.
Chrysalites are encouraged to present slideshows on a relevant topic
or conduct workshops. This helps all of us to interact and, more
essentially, break the ice,” Sweta adds.
 Since Chrysalis means a sheltered state of
growth, an activity that pretty much satisfies this meaning is the
Karate class. In these sessions, the women are taught basic Karate
techniques to improve their self defence.
“Most of the women here travel alone; it is very
important for them to take care of themselves and know how to defend
themselves,” she says. Apart from such things, the women also give a
lot of importance to soft skills. They have classes for improving
communication skills and personality development programmes that
give every woman the much needed confidence to come out of her
shell.
Chrysalis also makes sure that the women are
trained in things like table etiquette and basic hygiene. When you
just start wondering if this is more of a training ground than an
enjoyable get-together, you are forced to think again. These women
arrange special outings to amusement parks or even eateries! They
also participate in special pot luck parties and more interestingly,
follow a dress code at every meeting!
 “I feel this is a wonderful step towards bringing
out the talent in every woman. The best thing is the acknowledgement
that these women get when they come here and speak their hearts out.
Occasionally, the senior managers at String address these women and
share their ideas with the entire committee. I am really glad that
these women came up with such a great idea,” says Christine Hutt,
manager on special duty, String.
“We are committed to our lady professionals. We
want to see a lot of women leaders emerging through our ranks and we
are working towards that,” says Prashant Kothari, president and
founder, String.
The company itself finances this forum, thus
encouraging it to initiate several more activities.
 “I think it’s because of the support and
understanding from the management that our attrition rate is low –
less than 4 per cent a year. Besides, we have external consultants
providing us training in communication, leadership and decision
making qualities!” concludes Sweta.
These spirited women are also hoping to be
involved in more social issues in future. Won’t it be wonderful if
every company took such an initiative to develop and enhance a
woman’s skills and break the mould that typecasts women
office-goers?
Sandhya Santhanaraman
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