Amazon's 'Rekindle' to help women resume work after a break

E-commerce firm Amazon has launched an initiative 'Rekindle' to encourage women employees to return to work after a career break.

As part of this initiative, the company will provide structured on-boarding, focused mentoring, flexible work options and on the job learning to will help candidates develop the requisite competencies for the role, Amazon said in a statement.

Amazon will provide an environment to address their concerns and close specific skill gaps, it added.

"We will offer them roles that allow a flexible work arrangement and at the same time, provide an opportunity to perform effectively on the job such as live projects across different functional areas including technology, operations as well as support functions like HR, finance and legal etc," it said.

This will enable gradual ramp up of responsibilities in stages giving the candidates the bandwidth to regain confidence and accustom to what is expected from them, Amazon said.

"Often when we looked to fill key positions, we chanced upon senior women leaders who had taken a career break and wanted to return to work," Amazon Director Human Resources APAC Raj Raghavan said.

However, several of them were constrained by lack of being in active practice with their skills and expertise on their subject that they weren't as confident as they would have earlier been, he added.

"With Rekindle, we aim to provide a launch pad to women who have had an extended absence from work in their career due to any circumstances and encourage them to come to Amazon and pursue their career goals," he said.

As per Gender Diversity Benchmark for Asia 2011 report, female employees represent a very small percentage in the total workforce (29 per cent). It has also been observed that Indian female employees give up their careers sooner in comparison with other Asian countries.

Under Rekindle, the mentoring engagement will also include a series of developmental conversations spread over five months, where each of the identified areas is progressively worked upon.