Outdated HR policies trigger inequality

Ritika Sharma / Emirates Business

While intangible practices and biases are generally rated the most influential barriers for female leaders to grow professionally and become the norm in the industry, tangible barriers in the form of formal or old-fashioned Human Resource (HR) policies also play a foul role in hindering women from scaling the professional ladder in the Middle East region, experts opine.
According to a McKinsey report titled ‘GCC women in leadership – from first to the norm’ that studied the labour market in in Gulf Cooperation council (GCC), emphasised upon the lack of appropriate infrastructure to accommodate the discerning requirement for separate facilities for men and women as the top barrier.
While talking to Emirates Business about the possible solution to the workforce inequality, Ruksana Habib, assistant manager HR, at Job Solutions, a Dubai-based recruitment agency, said, “This is a very accurate observation. We have been advocating for women empowerment at the workplace for the last many years but still there is a mammoth scope for improvement. What is needed the most is to have appropriate HR policies, facilitating women employees, in place. However, yet we are not working in that direction. As an employer, one must make sure there are policies to ensure their female employees feel confident about their position and work.”
One of the respondents of the McKinsey survey, a senior executive working in oil and gas sector in the UAE, said, “We face what I call an out-of-date HR. There are yet too few HR policies equal for men and women, e.g. housing allowance, educational support for children and even salaries. Updating and equalising HR policies for equal work qualification should be a top priority.”
Unsatisfactory HR policies to support upward growth of women in workforce remained one of the most cited reasons for workplace inequality in the aforesaid report. In respect to this, law and regulations in different GCC countries have been designed and are enabling the change. However, experts believe still there is a room for improvement like equal pay and leave issues.
“Lack of proper and clear HR policies to ensure equal opportunities and entitlements – hiring, promotion, salaries and benefits as well as behaviour – is a major issue. HR departments are still at developing stage at many organisations in this region,” said another respondent of the survey, who is a director of a leading company in philanthropic sector in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.