The latest HR research survey from Bayt.com and YouGov Siraj titled ‘’Women in the Middle East Workplace’’ indicates that woman across the region are standing tall, taking an active role in the workforce, climbing the organisational ranks in every industry and making a very active commitment to their careers.

Several encouraging findings emerge from the survey. Women largely feel they are as ambitious or even more ambitious than their male colleagues, they largely plan to work to an equal or greater age than their male colleagues and the largest number of them (59%) feel they are ‘’treated fairly’’ at the workplace and receive ‘’equal treatment as their male colleagues’’ (as compared to 24% who feel they are treated ‘’unfairly’’ vis-à-vis male colleagues.) Moreover the largest number of women (51%) feel that appreciation in their companies is based on performance alone and not on gender (as compared to 15% who feel that ‘’male employees get better appreciation than female employees’’.

And encouragingly, 75% of women indicated that there are currently already women in the senior ranks of their companies. Perhaps the best news of all is the extent to which women are participating in the regional workforce with 30% of respondents (the largest group) indicating that they perceive as many as 51-75% of women in their country to be actually working at present.

When it comes to the key issues of compensation and benefits however the survey shows that there is a lot of progress that can still be made to ensure a level playing field for women and men in the Middle East workforce. The largest groups of women indicate they earn less than their spouse/partner as well as their male counterparts at work.

Moreover 43% of women feel they have a lower chance of being promoted than men and 32% indicate they perceive they will have poor career growth in their current jobs. When asked what obstacles they face in advancing their career, most women cited the ‘’lack of flexible timing or option to work at home’’ as being a key obstacle followed by the perception that women in their respective companies ‘’are not able to progress beyond a certain level in the organisational structure.’’ 17% of women also felt that women in their companies do not get sufficient or appropriate training in skills required for career advancement.

The vast majority of women agreed that if employers were to extend special benefits to women employees, the working lives of women would be prolonged ‘’to a large extent’’. Women felt these benefits were necessary mostly because ‘’women are responsible for the well-being of the children/family unit.’’

Learnings for employers from the survey are manifold not least of which is the fact that women professionals see themselves as a vital and permanent constituent of the Middle East professional workforce, and in order to tap into this vital resource pool employers are well advised to be sensitive to the specific requirements and circumstances of women employees in the region. Luckily these are well assessed in the survey which we see as being another landmark regional HR survey providing key insights to improve the lives of regional professionals and employers alike.

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