Only 2 Out Of 14 Leading Pakistani Companies Are A Female Friendly Workplace

Last week we launched our Women @ Work Pakistan 2013 report. We had some great responses and would like to thank you for your interest and support in moving the gender diversity agenda in Pakistan forward.

One of the key objectives was to find out what women in Pakistan are expecting from their employers and how some of Pakistan’s leading companies do against these expectations. The answer was almost a Maslowian pyramid of needs, with more than 50% of all women indicating that their first and foremost concern was a safe work environment and a strict enforced sexual harassment policy. Followed by the ability to look after personal and work commitments and being given equal career and development opportunities. 

More so, than in many other societies around the world, Pakistani women are supposed to be the homemakers. No matter whether she works or not this expectation doesn’t change. Due to these expectations she is looking for an employer who can provide flexible work arrangements. This doesn’t only include the possibility to have flexible start and end timings, but also the opportunity to fulfill personal commitments during the day and maybe work in the evenings or work from home. 

So how are Pakistan’s leading companies doing? First of all, female employees of the different participating companies gave their own employer significantly different score cards with the difference between the best and the least female friendly workplace a whopping 35%. Only 2 out of the 14 leading companies in Pakistan can be described as female friendly workplaces. 

Guess which element was the largest difference between the best and the worst…guess again…No, it was commitment from their leadership team in driving gender diversity. The best company got an A+ with 87% of the female participants agreeing and the worst scoring company got an E grade with only 27% of their female employees stating their leadership visibly supports gender diversity. 

The good news was that all female employees indicated that they were happy with the safe and secure work environment their companies provided them. They were significantly less positive about their employers’ ability to provide flexible work arrangements (only 50% have some sort of flexible work arrangements, mostly flexible office hours). Another issue raised by female employees was the lack of support from companies to help women transition back to the workplace after their maternity leave. This did not only focus on the absence of physical facilities (i.e. child care facilities close to the office) but also on more subtle attitude shifts towards returning women from the line managers and employers.  

I will be back next week sharing some best practices and insights in what Pakistani companies can do to become a female friendly workplace. If you don’t want to wait till then you can read the Women @ Work Report 2013 and watch a 4 minute summary presentation. 

See you next week and do share what you have done this week to advance the role of female leaders in your organisation

– Paul Keijzer

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