By Sami Wahid
The global dynamics for the role of women in corporate environments have transformed rapidly over the past few years. This is especially true for Pakistan where despite making up 49.6% of the total population, cultural stereotypes have hindered the progress of women in professional and academic fields.
Even today, only 20% of women in Pakistan are part of the labor force, when the ideal threshold should be 50%. These numbers depict a substantial gap that requires immediate attention. Fortunately, as the world goes through an information revolution, mindsets and perspectives are undergoing rapid change. As a result, the acceptance of women not just across diverse sectors but also in departments previously considered unconventional is growing.
With the world recently celebrating International Women’s Day, the manner in which perspectives have shaped, especially in the local ecosystem, was brought to light. And as much as there is a lot to appreciate on the development front, there are still challenges that need to be overcome.
For women to progress today, one of the key issues is offering psychological safety. Over the years, prevailing stereotypes and restrictions have suppressed the ability of many women to believe in their own potential. Therefore, they need to be reminded that they are equally as good, and intelligent as men in the professional world. Moreover, sometimes their performance is even better than men’s.
In Pakistan, a country where culture and society hold substantial value, corporations are defying gender-biased norms to facilitate women in realizing their true potential. For instance, Mondelez, the largest snacking company in the world, recently started inducting women workers in their manufacturing plant located at Hub.
Mondelez Pakistan holds a rich history of influencing narratives to break thought barriers and biases that exist. With men being advocates for change too, the company continues to drive its efforts of fostering and boosting women, not just in the workforce but also in senior, managerial positions. A prime example of this is the fact that currently, 40% of their leadership is made up of women. Even our previous Managing Director of the company was a woman.
Modern organizations hold the responsibility to provide women with the right infrastructure, and a productive as well as safe working environment. As women embrace far more diverse roles than ever before including field jobs. This is another area where companies like Mondelez Pakistan are making a difference.
Before inducting women members at their Hub plant, the company lined up a few sensitization trainings to acclimatize the current workforce for the change that was coming. And they went beyond that by developing a holistic ecosystem to create a conducive environment for the newest members of the team.
This included arranging transportation, building infrastructural capabilities like separate bathrooms and changing rooms for women, creating a common area for females, and designating specific POCs for the fresh recruits to reach out to. Together, these changes made a ground-breaking initiative more feasible for all existing and new employees.
These steps highlight the underlying efforts to truly empower women in the corporate world of today. In essence, there are three main categories of initiatives that need to be instated to facilitate women in the corporate environment. This includes eliminating wage parity, equal career opportunities for them at all levels, and finally infrastructural support in terms of the most basic facilities that women need.
Corporations today including the likes of Mondelez Pakistan offer women the freedom to grow with the support of extensive resources like the flexibility to work from home, a gradual return to work post maternity leaves, the ability to bring kids to work along with conveyance allowances for added feasibility.
In Pakistan and the rest of the world, a laudable initiative has been the Male Champions for Change (MCC), a cohort of senior, influential corporate leaders, all united to bring change not just within their own organizations but across their industries as well. Together these individuals are working tirelessly to further drive narratives that will allow women to be inducted more openly in corporate settings.
As part of the MCC coalition, Mondelez Pakistan has also contributed to a collective report which shall be published publicly to share best practices from different local organizations, a step that will pave the way for endearing and sustainable changes to be implemented across the board.
Sami Wahid is the Managing Director at Mondelēz Pakistan. As a specialist in the snack and beverage industry, Sami provides over 17 years of expertise in the domains of Marketing, Sales, and Strategy.
