As March approaches, the world starts to witness celebrations along with activism for women and gender equality. The United Nations dedicated the 8th of this month to recognize achievements, struggles and strength of women everywhere.
With the theme #EachforEqual this year, the emphasis has been to highlight milestones pertaining to gender equality which includes Beijing Declaration, Platform for Action, and 10th anniversary of UN Women’s establishment, amongst others.
There is a great need to achieve gender equality in every walk of life and primarily at work places, as it plays an integral role in fostering positive change, which has a long lasting impact in behaviour transformation. Thus a good starting place is workplace that can help create an equal and enabled world for all.
Being a developing country, Pakistan has still a long way to go as far as getting women to have equal rights, recognition and gender balanced society. However it’s important that both stand a fair chance in being provided equal opportunities based on their respective talent and capabilities, without gender getting into the way of a better life. Patriarchy, along with lack of education and awareness, is a huge hindrance for the growth of gender equality in the country. However, there are still some organizations making efforts to eradicate the hurdles in the pathway to equality and enabling environment.
One such organization is PTCL, the largest national telecom company, which has evolved and opened its door to include women into their huge workforce- be it technical, operations, customer services, HR or legal based both in the regions and at HQ level. There are various initiatives and policies in the company that aim to encourage women empowerment and bring diversity as part of their culture.
Some of these facilities include a fully-functional day-care center, pick & drop facility, designated parking area within the office building and work-from-home for two days in a month for working mothers amongst others. Furthermore, as we witness that several higher management positions are being held by women in PTCL as it believes in being an equal opportunity employer and encourages women to climb the corporate ladder. These efforts have all contributed to PTCL being recognized and has also won awards such as Women Empowerment Award 2017 and Diversity & Inclusion Progressive Award 2019.
To celebrate the International Women Day, PTCL held a series of events across Pakistan including Islamabad, Lahore, Quetta, Faisalabad, Peshawar and Karachi. PTCL acknowledged women’s diverse perspectives, creative ideas, immense talent and superior management skills that contribute to the overall workplace balance. Women in PTCL shared their inspiring and motivating success stories that enabled others to follow their footsteps. The deep insight into what professional women go through and how organizations can play their role in encouraging gender equality can be very beneficial for an equal and enabled world.
One can argue that no country in the world has been able to fully succeed in gender equality and Pakistan is no different in this case. Therefore, it is heartening to see companies like PTCL, not only recognise this inequality, but also put in time and effort to create gender equality in their workplace.
