Flexibility to smash the glass ceiling

The UAE’s banking sector is one of the many where women are underrepresented in leadership positions. Only 12 per cent of the 8,000 Emirati women in banking have senior management roles. This is the case despite the high representation of Emirati women in the sector. As the chairman of the UAE Banks Federation, Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair, wrote in The National yesterday, 72 per cent of all the UAE nationals in the banking workforce are women. But they don’t seem to get very far up the ladder. Why?

There is no single answer, as Mr Al Ghurair points out. Women face many challenges when they join the workforce. Some of these could be cultural, such as a gender bias that is both historical and deep. It is the reason that despite all the sterling work done by women – the inventions, discoveries, entrepreneurship – misconceptions persist about their capabilities.

Sometimes, of course, women don’t get to the top because they don’t stay long enough to be promoted. Many women leave their jobs once they have children. As in other parts of the world, juggling work and family is probably the biggest challenge facing working women here in the UAE. But there is a need to support them and retain them within the workforce.

As we have argued before, a range of measures is needed. First and foremost, women must have adequate maternity leave and it should be in line with the average in the developed world. UAE labour law allows just 45 days of paid leave for new mothers in the private sector and 60 days for those with government jobs. This is certainly not long enough for women to adjust to their new circumstances, bond with the baby and return to work relatively untroubled. In Sweden, for example, mothers receive just over three quarters of their previous salary for up to 13 months after giving birth.

The workplace could also be more flexible. Some local banks have already made progress in this area, offering alternatives such as job sharing, part-time work or reduced hours, if needed. Workplace nurseries also help because women often feel better when they can look in on the baby during the work day. On their own, none of these measures would be particularly effective but taken together, they would help stem the female exodus from the workforce.