Unable to meet its gender diversity aspirations only from hip young campuses, Microsoft-IT India is turning to an unlikely talent pool to find more women employees stay-at-home moms, a company sources said Friday.

In a first such initiative globally, the Indian offshore arm of Microsofts IT engineering division is trying to persuade women techies who have taken a career break for personal reasons such as marriage or child birth to come back to work.

On offer are reskilling and mentoring,flexible working hours, and an option to work from home or any other tailor-made solution that techie moms demand.

Wives and mothers thus wooed back by Microsoft IT-India could one day help develop some of Microsofts popular software that power millions of PCs worldwide.

"These women will work at the India's southern state of Andhra Pradesh's capital Hyderabad-based centre, Microsofts largest outside its Redmond head quarters, which has helped develop popular Microsoft applications including Share Point, NET, SQL Server and Biz Talk.

About 1,300 employees work there. If we need talent, we need to adjust and provide solutions to employees," says Rajiv Burman, HR director, Microsoft IT-India.

Even though the company is now hiring 40 percent more women from campuses than it did three years ago, many women would quit due to personal reasons three to four years later, just as they are ready to move into leadership roles. Microsoft IT-India has decided to address the issue proactively. Not content with merely attracting, retaining and building a culture conducive to women, it has decided to lure women engineers back to work with second careers.