Providing women a diversity edge

Our Correspondent / EMIRATES BUSINESS

Glowork was formed in 2011 by young entrepreneurs who aim to enable women and increase diversity in the workforce. As it is the first dedicated organisation where its online portal considered being a platform that links female jobseekers and employers, it also has a system that allows women to work virtually from home that has helped create opportunities for them in rural areas. From an offline perspective, Glowork also has a headhunting arm that conducts the filtering, screening, interviewing and mentoring females, as well as operating the first public female career fair. Founded in Saudi Arabia, Glowork has extended its branches into Emirates as well.
Khalid Waleed Alkhudair, social entrepreneur, Founder and CEO of Glowork, told Emirates Business, “Glowork has placed over 20,000 women throughout the Saudi labour force in the last four years. Also has established a virtual offices tool to enable women to work virtually in rural areas and with disabilities along with our annual Career Fair ‘StepAhead’ which helped more than 3000 women be recruited and more than 30,000 females attend in 3 different cities (Riyadh, Dammam and Jeddah). Very soon we are launching an application that will impact women
globally.”
In 2012 Glowork signed a private public partnership with the Ministry of Labour. Due to that, it has acquired global recognition from various quarters. Through the web presence the horizon of the company expand into the rest of the Middle East.
Website Subscription — Glowork has created an online portal where companies and jobseekers can connect with one another. Basically, the portal gives companies a free trial opportunity prior to the website subscription. Unlimited CV browsing and unlimited jobs posts are the competitive advantages Glowork provide to the subscribed companies.
The job portal of Glowork beneficially combines the usage between technology and innovation in order to overcome social constraints that
hinder female employment.
Online Advertisment — Glowork provides a ‘click through’ advertisement services for their clients on its online portal Glowork.com.
The web banner advertisement is a form of advertising on the internet. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to the client’s website by linking it to the website of Glowork. A click on the client’s banner provides Glowork’s viewers with a direct link to the client’s website, while also providing brand or service name
attention.
Glowork Application — In order to facilitate the research on jobseekers, Glowork is pleased to announce the newest features in the revamped and improved Glowork site accompanying the release of the new user friendly mobile app. An entire community solely for female use will be made available with a wide array of features. Through this smart application will help a community that females can interact both professionally and socially and have an exclusive hub for females alike to post and share among colleagues.
A place that helps to match qualifications with suitable careers. Glowork mobile App is serving both female and companies. It serves females in terms of job searching and social purposes.
As for job searching, females can use the mobile App in searching for opportunities in which they can find jobs easily accessing many companies and interacting with them. As for social purposes, females can use social networks platforms to share and connect instantly. Companies can use Glowork mobile App in accessing female job seekers database and interact with potential candidates they want to hire.
They also can market their
products using this App easily.
Virtual Offices — The company developed a virtual ‘office monitoring solution’ tool. This tool enables women to work virtually from home and employers are able to monitor their activities in a very professional manner.
This overcomes constraints of the segregation law due to which SMEs desist from hiring women as that would mean separate office space, rent, utilities, furniture, etc. which is regarded as a ‘cost’.
The tool also enables women to apply for over 20 different kinds of jobs from home and each has its own monitoring metric.
This creates jobs for those in rural areas and with special needs/disabilities, increases the Saudisation percentage, and saves money for the employer, as the cost of the system is similar to the cost of the transportation allowance alone, leave aside other overheads.
The system won an award by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), United Nations (UN) and World Bank through the youth employment network, as being the most innovative solution for job creation throughout the globe.
Tamheed — Glowork through its partnership with Silatech provides Tamheed career advisory services. The programme includes a series of tests and self-assessment evaluation designed to help users make informed decisions about their careers.
This will also help on building capabilities and capacities through training institution, professional advisers certified by the program. It also integrates new human resources.
“Glowork offered to utilise the data of the unemployed and find job opportunities for them and provide a service to employers by filtering, screening and assessing female candidates at no cost to employers as government covers the cost. Employers are encouraged to open jobs for women as they can outsource their recruitment to a professional firm, government saves a lot of money and we have a sustainable business. On average 26 women are recruited daily into private sector companies in Saudi Arabia through Glowork. We also have had a major impact on the cultural shift through grass root marketing and efforts that change the mindset of the society towards working women,” said Khalid.