Development of Women Employees: A Source of Sustaining Competitive Advantage in Banking Service

Changes in workplace demographics have brought about significant gender diversity in public sector banks with more and more women entering the workforce. The resultant gender dynamics has to be carefully addressed through policies, practices and initiatives to unleash the potential of these women for gaining sustainable competitive advantage. The issue was discussed from twin perspectives of building capacity of the employee as well as the work environment to make it gender sensitive with special reference to a leading public sector bank in India where the share of women employees have grown from 7% in 1988 to 20 percent in 2014. The aim of the paper is to highlight through literature review the policies and practices available that are women friendly globally and to suggest further improvements to develop women employees into an inimitable source of competitive advantage.