Afternoon Highlight (16/11/12/213/686)'If you do not do enough to recruit, retain and promote women, you are missing out half of the talent pool'

'If you do not do enough to recruit, retain and promote women, you are missing out half of the talent pool'


KUALA LUMPUR: Much more can be done by organisations to retain female talents which account for half of the workforce, said The Boston Consulting Group Malaysia partner and managing director Nor Azah Razali.

She told StarBiz: “Talent has always been an issue not just in emerging markets but also mature markets.

“To close the talent gap, you need to source from the different pool that you can find especially women. If you do not do enough to recruit, retain and promote women, you are missing out half of the talent pool.”

Meanwhile, Wan Mohd Firdaus, chairman and founder of Youth Corporate Malaysians (YCM), a business club with a network of over 8,000 young working professionals. said there was 57% of female at entry level and the number shrank to 5% to 6% at top management level.

Gender diversity was not a priority in many Malaysian companies as they did not see the benefit of it, he said.

“Once you build the pipeline and retain talents, organisations would be able to reap benefits from it (measures taken to retain female talents).”

Both of them noted that many women left the workforce as they have more family commitments and the phenomenon could be overcome by introducing flexible policies in the workplace.

Azah said physical face-time which was still emphasised in many companies discouraged women from continuing further as the rigidity refrain them from multi-tasking.

But with technology, employees could work with much more flexibility and delivering results at the same time, she pointed out.

Quoting her own example, she had flexibility in her roles and enjoyed the convenience of communicating with colleagues and clients via video-conferences despite being a mother of five children.

Besides that, companies could also provide parental leaves and look into solutions like job-sharing whereby two employees share the same role and cover the other person's work when he or she was on long leave, she added.

To address adaptability and sustainability of organisations for workplace diversity, YCM has invited leaders from various industries to speak at the 4th Annual Young Corporate Malaysians Summit.

Firdaus said some young female executives did not think climbing the corporate ladder while having a family at the same time was manageable because they did not have role models.

With prominent figures from both private and public sectors sharing their experiences, female executives should be able to gain some insights from the event, he said.

Nor Azah will be moderating the first session, “Shattering the Glass Ceiling Managing Diversity in Leadership and Organisation”, with speakers such as Accenture partner Stephanie Gault, AirAsia Bhd CEO Aireen Omar and Malayan Banking Bhd head of group human capital Nora Abd Manaf.

The summit themed “Diversity in the workplace: challenges and opportunities” will be held on Nov 24 (Saturday), starting from 9.00am to 5.00pm, at Intercontinental Hotel, Kuala Lumpur.

Admission is free. For more information, contact Dalila at dalila@ycm.org.my.

Source :New Straits Times
Date : 16 November 2012
Afternoon Highlight (16/11/12/213/686)