More women in boardroom, please

Towers Watson Talent & Rewards, Asia Pacific, managing director Clare Muhiudeen said the fastest way to accelerate women participation in the workforce is by putting the fairer sex in key positions in an organisation.

"When women are empowered to take up leadership roles, it increases and retains working mothers in a company. There is a strong correlation between the two. Lady bosses would be able to support their women subordinates.They can empathise with the challenges faced by working mothers." said Clare.

She also said that lady bosses are more sympathetic towards the struggles faced by their women subordinates which include balancing household responsibilities and career.

However, women participation in the market place is obviously lacking, especially when Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak revealed that women only made up 16 per cent of the boards in public companies. Najib in 2011 announced a 30 per cent target for women working in public sectors to fill in key position in an organisation.

It seems that the race to push women talents in the forefront seems like a huge battle. However, leading the way is Malayan Banking Berhad Maybank which has emerged as one of the few organisation with 54 per cent women in the company.

Its Group Chief Human Capital Officer Nora Manaf revealed that women representation in management positions has grown from 38 percent in 2009 to 46 per cent in 2014.

"Women in senior management position also increased from 11 percent in 2008 to 35.1 percent in 2014, recording 11 percent higher than the global average of 24 percent in the 2014 Grant Thornton International Business Report."

"Our gender representation is closely tracked. Maybank's diversity and inclusion policy governs all aspects of employment practices and activities. It ensures there is no discrimination or harassment and is based on rule of meritocracy." Nora reveals to Astro Awani.

Nora said other measures that improved the percentage of women in critical position is ensuring the succession planning is balanced. For top management positions, out of 3 candidates shortlisted to helm a role, one of the candidate must be a woman.

Meanwhile, Maybank's mentoring programme has managed to retain loyal female employees. Currently, there are 47 female mentors and 132 female mentees.

"Pairing up this women is critical. They will be able to chart their career aspirations while being realistic not to neglect their role as a wife and mother, " said Nora.

Nora also added that with sufficient support by the management, the crop of talented women would not simply just "throw in the towel".

It is undertsood that Maybank has also approved 355 staff under its Flexi Work Arrangements (FWA) programme, of which 239 of the approved are women.

Also benefiting working mothers is the Maybank Tiger Club Centre which was introduced in 2014 to provide drop-in emergency childcare service for the staff.