Promoting gender diversity in the workplace should be top-down, experts agreed on Wednesday, calling out leaders to be more committed to creating diverse organisations.
“Leaders can infect a room much faster than others,” Saliha Afridi, founder and managing director of Lighthouse Arabia, adding corporate leaders need to be more involved in conversations about diversity.
The comment was made at a panel discussion in the ongoing Arabian Business Women in Business Conference in Dubai where other business leaders talked about the role of employers in empowering female workers.
Roberto Shalabi, who takes care of global consulting firm Avanade’s talent acquisition strategy, said leaders need to ensure women have the tools to succeed in the workplace.
“Leaders should ensure that women are given projects that create pathways of opportunities,” he said, also adding that men, who take more leadership positions than women, should take active roles in supporting women.
“Men can set aside two hours of their time per day or per week to coach women, or any other practical initiatives,” Shalabi said.
This was echoed by Afridi, a psychologist by training, who said women “need sponsors, not allies.”
Afridi said men should understand that gender diversity, particularly supporting women, in the workforce could “make or break” organisations, citing several studies that prove how more diversity leads to better bottom-line.
To be fair, Maryan Ficociello, the chief governance officer of Saudi Arabia’s The Red Sea Development Company, said companies “are becoming much more aware of how important diversity in the workplace is.”
She said well-being – which she described as being tied to diversity – should also be a critical element of how leaders run their companies.
“We need to focus on making our organisations well and healthy,” Ficociello said, adding it is important for companies to be conducive to conversations among employees.
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