Building inclusive societies and careers for women towards an equitable world
9 Mar 2021 - Career planning
The struggle for women's careers and lack of leveraging female talent by companies is real and global. Asia has bigger barriers than the rest of the world on account of patriarchal society and workplace biases.
Today, during COVID-19, as we celebrate #InternationalWomensDay, it is important to take a moment and reflect that we are at an important juncture in history: women careers are finally getting cross-sector impetus, while Asia is booming yet facing a talent crunch in the technology sector. Based on the McKinsey research in 2018, advancing women’s equality in the countries of Asia Pacific could add $4.5 trillion to their collective annual GDP in 2025.1
Women often leave their jobs at key junctures of the career ladder in all Southeast Asian markets. Across all industries, women make up more than 50% of university graduates but fewer than 15% of CEO and board-level positions in Southeast Asia.2
Hiring and the barriers to entering workforce
The barriers to entering the workforce are higher in some developing countries as compared to the developed world, pay gaps are significant, hiring mechanisms are fluid, need to be more data-driven, and require harnessing community-wide engagement. The standard hiring/talent acquisition models which work in the developed world do not seem to work in most parts of Asia, leaving to the disadvantage of many deserving women who study at good universities but don’t get access to right networks, companies, and culture which could set them up for a career marathon.
Talent acquisition can benefit from engaging talent early, working with women communities to source candidates who are not in the current workforce, doing some advance planning to engage and hire these women with the aid of video interviews, mentoring programs, and hiring circles. But to make this shift, we need a bigger impetus from leadership teams in companies to ensure HR and hiring teams are engaging with communities for talent sourcing. This will enable communities to better serve women who need support, network, and upskilling.
Talented women are becoming entrepreneurs
At the same time talented women are largely represented in entrepreneurship where they are launching small businesses which struggle to take off on account of lack of business networks, funding, sponsorships, and at times, lack of commercial mentoring as most of these women are skilled but may not have the acumen needed for the trade. Women across the world are becoming entrepreneurs in great numbers—38% sole proprietorship globally, which creates positive impacts for their communities and economies.3 The reason why these talented women choose these opportunities versus staying in corporate is because of increased flexibility, opportunity to follow their passion, and the chance to bypass the "glass ceiling" that traditionally limits women's career progression. Entrepreneurship allows women to take charge of their worth, a significant advantage in developing countries where there is a high barrier to entry in the formal labor market. Entrepreneurship is still hard and not easy to pursue in the long run for women on account of financial constraints—although we have some success stories—many women entrepreneurs who can’t build a sustainable living income, do entrepreneurship part time, or shift to low paid jobs.
So how do we build equitable society where everyone’s talent is contributed in right ways enabling families and economies to a sustainable future
Beyond efforts from the government, we also need focused efforts from companies at all levels, positive role models, and women helping women and men helping women to bring about systematic changes, harnessing efforts to improve the number of women who can stay in the workforce contributing to mature, resilient leaderships in teams and societies.
Yesterday, there was a pledge by SG companies with some actions to support women and that is a phenomenal effort by IMDA and SG Tech.4 Technology is making it easier to work from everywhere. There is a change in mindset and working habits and reduced bias in offices, which will hopefully fuel for better team cultures and improved workplaces for not only women but for everyone to thrive.
To accelerate and bring women into the workforce in leading areas such as technology, all solutions and policies that can be made can only aid the process. Thus, Pinkstripes is a career accelerator and platform for women careers and is on a mission to support women in their career journey through our programs and enable companies to engage, hire and grow.
Refreshing workforce by bringing women back into it
It is proven that women bring key leadership attributes, transferable skills and loads of experience from their roles in society in Asia where societal expectations from women are much higher.
Let us not forget how women in the workforce are disproportionately impacted by COVID. This needs empathetic leadership, removal of motherhood penalty, and focussed mentoring to support sustainable careers.
Motherhood penalty hinders women progress in mid to senior careers. We need more success stories and data on how many companies and leaders gave women who took career breaks a second chance—not to test their competence, but to help them better integrate and thrive in their roles.
Making workplaces inclusive will reap positive culture. Leadership, senior women and men in companies all have a role to play.
Speaking of APAC, the positive spin in current times is the improved cultural sensitivity and acceptance to work from home and flexi work options that were available in the past to only privileged few.
It is no longer a taboo to take a call with kids in the background. Your teams understand better that you are a parent too. And more importantly men got to learn that working from home is the new habit with a new level of discipline to make it work with staying remote from your teams whom you can otherwise quickly connect over a drink or coffee to name a few.
We, at Pinkstripes, #choosetochallenge that every talented woman who is struggling to get back into the workforce or struggling with any challenges, should be given the right support so she does not leave her career.
It’s time to let's join hands today and commit ourselves to helping women stay, thrive, and grow in the workforce!
Women, your time is Now!
Having said this, Pinkstripes is an active proponent of women owning their careers, continuously upskilling themselves to stay relevant, in the right networks, push their boundaries, proactively design their life and careers, establish their personal brand, and give their best versions to work and home. If you can lead a family well, chances are you will be a good leader at work today as long as you keep yourself relevant to the latest skills and habits. This is definitely true for most parts in the technology world where I have spent most of my career till date. So we encourage women to experiment, upskill in technology related skills, and get into gig assignments, projects, voluntary work to hone their habits and build their networks—get workforce-ready!
Real success in women inclusion will be when girls have access to right mentoring, opportunities right from high school, early-career and mid-to-senior careers to ensure we are building sustainable societies and they can look at careers as jungles with a marathon mindset.
Pinkstripes is committed to contribute to helping women on the journey of upskilling, mentoring and providing access to opportunities in technology.
Happy International Women’s Day!
To influence conversations on how women can thrive and grow in technology careers, please join our panel of women business leaders in APAC on 17 March 2021 on How Women Can Make the Most of Their Careers in 2021: https://tinyurl.com/1dzsftzq
We will be running a series of conversations on women careers. So if you are interested in participating in the future, just get in touch.
References:
2https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/boosting-women-in-southeast-asia-tech-sector
3https://asianprivatebanker.com/industry/celebrating-women-entrepreneurs/
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