Telecom professional juggles roles in the office and the workplace
Ms. Zuhyle now works full time, but at least two days of the week she works from home.
Shazna Zuhyle, a research manager at LIRNEasia, recently chaired a committee on the ICT price basket methodology at the ITU (International Telecommunications Union), in Geneva, Switzerland. What this means is that, starting 2018, the only global price benchmark for voice, SMS and data services, will be recommendations made by the committee she led.
But the 34-year-old has other achievements that she is proud to be known for; the six-year-old girl and the two-year-old boy, who both call her “mama”. “Juggling home, kids and a job is not possible without a good support system,” Ms. Zuhyle says. “But we forget that support is both personal and professional. Yes, my husband, parents and helpers at home are vital in enabling me to work, and I am so very grateful for their time and effort. But what is not addressed enough is the support needed from the employer. The flexible work arrangement they offered has made a huge difference in my life. That’s how I’m able to have a career and be a mum.”
She received her MSc in Telecommunications with distinction from University College London (UCL). She went into an internship programme at the ITU, the UN body that handles all things ICT related, immediately after. It was after returning to Sri Lanka from this experience that she joined LIRNEasia, late in 2009. LIRNEasia is a regional ICT and telecom policy think tank that conducts research into how ICTs can be used to improve lives in the Asia-Pacific. Ms. Zuhyle works primarily on their big data and telecom-related projects.
“One of the areas I focus on is on benchmarking broadband quality experienced by end users,” she explains. “When policy windows open up we use the findings of our research to make recommendations. The point of it all is to use evidence for policy change. We are a not-for-profit entity, so a fair amount of my time is also spent on putting together proposals and budgets along with my colleagues.”
In 2010, Ms. Zuhyle found out she was pregnant, but the fact didn’t change much for her in terms of career. “Two days before I gave birth to my daughter, I had a videoconference with the World Bank team in Washington DC,” she laughs. “I remember that most of the time, I was trying really hard to hide my tummy under the table!”
She had no doubt that she would return to fulltime work once her maternity leave ran out. Staying at home was not something that even occurred to her. But after giving birth in March 2011, all that changed. She knew she had to be there for her baby. “I knew I will not be comfortable relying solely on others to take care of her,” she explains.
Ms. Zuhyle reached out to LIRNEasia’s then Chief Operating Officer, Helani Galpaya, and offered to resign if there was no workaround. A lot of talented women she knew had opted out of their careers because their employers couldn’t accommodate the need to spend time with children. She knew it was likely she would have to give up the years of hard work and a promising career for the sake of her family.
But the response from LIRNEasia was different. “To me it was not a question that LIRNEasia needed to retain someone as capable as Shazna,” says Ms. Galpaya, now CEO. “I personally knew the value of flexi-work when my son was born, and even today enjoy the privilege of working from home.”
Ms. Zuhyle was initially offered the flexibility of working part time from home. Over the next two years, they worked towards ramping up. Ms. Zuhyle now works full time, but at least two days of the week she works from home. This arrangement allows her to be available for the children whenever they need her, and at the same time gives her enough “face time” with her co-workers. She works via email, Skype, WhatsApp, phone calls, whatever works, to get the job done.
Labour force participation by women in Sri Lanka, has remained between 34.8-per cent and at 35.1-per cent, in the years from 2010 to 2014. These numbers are lower than the same in many other similar economies such as Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Ghana. Flexible work arrangements are crucial to raising this number.
“There is so much that women can contribute if there are ways to accommodate the other roles they have to play,” she says. “Key to that, apart from a super supportive family of course, is that the employer’s mind-set needs to evolve. We are so hell-bent on the typical nine-to-five structure that many talented women have no choice but to drop out of the workforce. I was lucky to be able to continue working, and not have to quit to be with the kids.” As a result, Ms. Zuhyle has been able to make contributions that are relatively important at a global level.
In December 2011 she travelled to Mauritius with a 9-month-old in tow, to present LIRNEasia research on broadband quality of service at the ITU World Telecom / ICT Indicators Meeting (WTIM). In 2012, she was invited to an expert group meeting on the same subject in Bangkok, where again, her daughter went with her. In 2013, the ITU invited Ms. Zuhyle to consult on data acquisition for over 50 countries in the Asia-Pacific. This data is analysed and published in the ITU’s annual report on Measuring the Information Society.
In September 2015, she gave birth to her second child. Her family almost always accompanies her when she travels on work, and her husband takes on the responsibility of taking care of the kids at these times. “As all working women will say, it’s tough to strike a balance between work and running a home,” Ms. Zuhyle shrugs. “The workload is constant and you keep having to multi-task all the time. But you make it work based on your circumstances. Thanks to a supportive family and the flexibility my work has offered me, I don’t feel like I’m missing out or that the kids are disadvantaged in any way.”