Following a report that predicted female
representation in the professional and managerial
ranks will reach only 40 percent globally
in 2025, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) expert for Mercer said ensuring women thrive in the Middle East-North Africa region is critical to the region’s economic and social development.
Mercer’s When Women Thrive global report offered a 10-year forecast on global workforce equality. The human resource consulting firm’s report shows Europe and
North America struggling to keep gender equality in professional settings,
while Asia and the Middle East land at the bottom of the rankings.
“There
are a
range of barriers that
slow down the representation of women in work spaces in these regions,” Tom
O’Byrne, head of Mercer’s market development arm for the GCC, told Gulf News
Journal. “In some cases,
women might not want to chase a career when their priority is to manage a
family. In others, an organization might not have the programs or practices in
place to welcome and be comfortable with women supervisors, managers and
leaders. Also, academic pathways and career counseling might not be in tune
with tomorrow’s business or labor market needs. Women also sometimes prefer
sectors like banking, retail and professional services over others like manufacturing
and resource extraction.”
O’Byrne said his opinion is that business owners,
boards of directors and leaders can work on a few key areas to help improve the
situation, especially in the Gulf region.
“They need to study their own internal workforce
data alongside the external labor market trends to understand where they are
today and see where they want to be in the years to come,” O’Byrne said. “They need to
develop processes and programs that recognize that women are different, that
they lead and manage differently, that they bring different skills and
approaches to the workplace and they have a range of different requirements –
from compensation and benefits, to work style and contribution. It’s about
getting the mix right in time.”
The report revealed that women’s representation
within organizations drops as career levels rise – from support staff
through the executive level.
O’Byrne said there are a
range of reasons for this situation. A few of them are about the need for
passionate leadership and perseverance. Organizations with leaders who are not
actively engaged in driving diversity have fewer women at the top; and they
hire, promote and retain women at lower rates relative to men.
“Organizations are not making progress in building their
future female talent pipeline,” O’Byrne said. “Although focus at the top is necessary
given that women today hold only 20 percent of executive-level positions, the failure
to focus further down the pipeline means that women will still represent only
40 percent of the workforce at the professional level and above by 2025.”
He
said that organizations need to focus on systemic, supporting practices to build
the female talent pipeline that will sustain gender equality in the long term.
“Addressing
and overcoming this challenge will take time and effort for sure,” O’Byrne
said. “But this is also about individuals, groups and organizations taking
daily, weekly, monthly and permanent steps to realize the value we can create
when we leverage our most important human resources.”
