Engagement and education key for women in business
URGENT NEED IMPEDED BY MIDDLE MANAGERS, LACK OF INVESTMENT, MISCONCEPTIONS
strong commitment to hiring, developing, growing and supporting women is the key to enabling women in business to succeed, according to Nabil Habayeb, President and CEO, GE Middle East, North Africa and Turkey (MENAT).
“Hire, develop, grow and support — and as simple as they sound, they continue to be the bedrock of our organisational culture,” he said at an event organised by The Pearl Initiative, a forerunner of women’s empowerment in the Gulf.
Speaking about the urgent need to have more women in business, Habayeb said, “We need to accelerate the transformation not only because women form more than half the population and have higher levels of higher education than men, but because women empowerment is the biggest opportunity we have for socio-economic transformation.”
Habayeb went on to cite an inclusive culture of women leadership, investment in their skills, and the promotion of work life balance as keys to growing the number of working women in the region.
These sentiments were echoed in a report released on February 1 by The Pearl Initiative, which suggested that an integrated approach involving schools and universities, aggressive awareness drives at multiple levels, fostering a supportive infrastructure and working environment, and family engagement were the most effective ways to address the challenges of women’s employment. The report, titled Women’s Careers in the GCC — Four Good Practice Case Studies, surveyed four of the region’s leading companies — General Electric (GE), Olayan Group, PepsiCo and Petroleum Development Oman (PDO).
Changing perceptions of women in leadership roles, acquiring and retaining local female talent, and overcoming practical challenges in terms of logistics and infrastructure are key issues that employers in the GCC face, according to the report.
Seeking to combat these challenges, Nabil Habayeb spoke about initiatives that GE has launched in recent years, resulting in over 850 women in their MENAT team, and more than 25 in senior leadership positions.
“Last year, we launched a pilot programme called ‘Return to Career’. The realities are that there are many women who as young graduates joined great companies and enjoyed stellar careers, and then had to take a four or five year break, for a number of reasons — having a family, taking care of one’s parents, relocation to another country and so on,” he said.
GE’s ‘Return to Career’ programme, launched in the UAE, took on eight applicants who received coaching, mentoring and networking opportunities across the businesses.
Today, the digitisation of industry has opened new doors of opportunity that reduce the importance of gender, most obviously in the technology and manufacturing sector.
“We are living in an era when skilled professionals sitting remotely can monitor every piece of heavy machinery, control it and contribute to greater operational efficiency,” said Habayeb.
“The stereotypical notions associated with women being in technical careers have therefore become obsolete now.”
Persistent theme
A persistent theme across all speakers at the event was the need to change company culture all the way down to the bottom.
According to Intisar Al Kindy, Exploration Director, Petroleum Development Oman, every CEO wants to set a tone of inclusion and diversity, and simply having this culture at the top is not enough.
It’s the men in the middle who often cause problems.
“Middle management often don’t trust women to work from home — everything can be done remotely these days, so that needs to definitely change!”
Al Kindy added that to combat this “PDO started a women’s network called HAWA — helping women communicate about professional growth, objectives, and challenges.”
Habayeb echoed this sentiment, hinting that GE had been forced to sack men in the past who didn’t fit the top-down culture of diversity.
“There is no space in our company for intolerance. The message has to resonate through the whole company, it can’t just be the CEO saying it. We have had to get rid of middle managers who didn’t fit with our culture,” he said.
For Hana Al Syead, Head of Diversity, Olayan Group, having the philosophy enunciated from the CEO is important to set the tone for everyone else. “Commitment from the top is important keep the agenda alive and visible, but a lot of engagement is necessary — we have over 80 company visits per year to talk about all employees and managers,” she said.
Ultimately, argued Al Kindy, men need to be educated on the business case of diversity for real change to take place.
Sachin Jain, Senior Manager for Culture and Engagement, PepsiCo, Asia, Middle East and North Africa, agreed with this.
“Women bring productivity to organisations: wherever we have diverse teams, we have seen return on investment (ROI) coming in very fast.”
“We’ve seen better engagement, more efficiency and an overall better workplace when women have been involved,” he said.
President and CEO, GE Middle East, North Africa and Turkey