UAE businesses need to embrace gender-inclusive initiatives

Last month saw most organisations celebrate International Women’s Day, shouting from the roof tops about how women friendly they are. Does one day make a difference? Shouldn’t every day be a celebration of who we are and the uniqueness we bring to our jobs irrespective of gender, disability race and religion? It’s a question that businesses have to answer – maybe too soon for some, maybe we still have a long way to go before we answer the question. But, the positive side is that the UAE has taken the right steps in addressing the gender balance issues and is on the right track.

Within the UAE landscape, women have dominated the student population, making up the majority of the country’s talented university graduates. Women comprise almost two-thirds of students attending government universities and make up over half of the student demographic in private institutions.

With a literacy rate of 95.8 percent in the UAE, women also dominate the talent pool and the benefits to businesses are exponential, but how can companies optimise growth and profits? Gender diversity and inclusion are the answer.

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) are proven pillars of success and provide the basis for future growth. This forward-thinking approach must be instilled from the top of the hierarchy, from the Senior Leadership Team, trickling downward into management teams and the workforce. Research by renowned agencies such as McKinsey and Catalyst has suggested that a gender-balanced workforce positively influences financial and non-financial performance indicators within organisations.

At Sodexo, through research findings conducted across 55,000 managers spanning 70 entities worldwide, we can effectively deduce that businesses can attain optimal outcomes when management teams have a gender ratio of 40 percent – 60 percent of women within the work setting.

Organisations that incorporated a gender-inclusive work culture and implemented this gender ratio within management teams have experienced rapid acceleration across five key performance indicators, including an 8 percent increase in operating margins; employee retentions levels rose by 8 percent; growth of client retention levels by 9 percent; a decrease in workplace accidents, indicating a 12 percent increase in safety within the workplace; and an uptick in employee engagement rates by 14 percent.

Studies have shown that over 75 percent of CEOs prioritise gender diversity, however, despite this widespread commitment and positive step toward gender parity in management teams and the workforce, much progress is yet to be made for companies to evolve from traditional male-focused leadership that currently still dominates the corporate world.

A critical point organisations need to focus on is de-biasing their business model. The UAE, in this predicament, has proactively set appropriate gender balance initiatives and strategies in place that work towards a diverse and inclusive economy. Currently, the UAE is ranked first regionally and 18th globally in the Gender Inequality Index (GII) of the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Report Human Development 2020.

In 2015, to further enhance its position on gender equality, the UAE government established the UAE Gender Balance Council, responsible for developing and implementing the gender balance agenda in the Emirates. With a vision to position the country as a global leader in gender diversity, the council will be launching strategies that will drive this vision forward.

To further supplement this vision, businesses in the UAE must implement a series of gender-inclusive initiatives that support and encourage female employees to up-skill and grow; providing leadership teams with a cost-effective medium to attain highly talented and dedicated employees.

This process can effectively be implemented through gender-balanced succession plans that focus on recruiting and promoting talented women. Companies can strengthen their inclusion initiatives by inviting women from local communities and universities to understand the roles and positions available within an organisation through job shadowing. Offering training programmes and workshops for leadership and management teams will eliminate unconscious biases, and promote a flexible and inclusive growth mindset within an organisation.

Embracing this change may take some time, but in the long run companies will experience a positive impact in terms of profitability and efficiency, and support to position the UAE as a global gender-balanced leader. It’s time to focus on thinking minds and working hands, not on who those minds and hands belong to.

Colm O’Mahoney, CEO of Middle East and Africa, Sodexo Middle East & Africa.