By Honeymah Dylyani, Malaysian Mirror
Tuesday, 18 August 2009 20:15
KUALA LUMPUR – The country needs more women in senior management positions in the corporate sector, said Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin. He said the Government had already agreed for 30% of decision-making positions in the public sector to be given to women and, likewise, the private sector should also aim for a similar target.
In government-linked companies only 12% of senior posts were being held by women, he said.
Women in key posts in private sector
In private companies, women holding key posts – from general manager to CEO – had gradually increased from 13.5% in 2004 to 26.2% last year, he added.
However, said Muhyiddin, the percentage of women who are members of boards of directors had declined from 9.9% in 2004 to 6.1% last year.
The deputy premier said this in his keynote address at the Women’s Summit 2009 at the Sime Darby convention centre here on Tuesday. The theme of the summit was Can Women Turn Adversity Into Opportunity?
Earn your place
Regarding the 30% target for women to hold key posts in the government sector, Muhyiddin reminded them that the positions will based on merit and not merely because they are women.
“They must earn it. The women must strive to earn these coveted positions based on merit, capabilities and experience.
“It is our national advantage that women excel in various fields and continue to play an important role in socio-economic development in this country.
“The cost of women’s exclusion is too high for us to bear. Gender justice and women empowerment are not only essential to our economic development but also a great leap forward in nation building,” he said.
Family-friendly work places
Muhyiddin said to assist working women and men to reconcile family and work responsibility, the Government has taken steps to introduce more conducive and family-friendly working environment.
“These include the provision of launching grants for Government offices and community-based organisations that provide childcare centres as well as a subsidy for childcare fees for eligible parents.
Muhyiddin urged the private sector, as the country’s largest employer, to provide more conducive working arrangements that should take into account the equal sharing of responsibilities between men and women in the family.
“These include new and flexible working arrangements such as tele-working, part-time work and job-sharing.”
Being workers and parents
He said that both men and women with talent are increasingly interested in blending parenthood with their careers.
“The careers they seek today, however, are not the traditional full-time office-bound roles,” he said.
He said top talent in future work models would be those who could strike a balance between their personal and professional priorities, while delivering high quality results.
“The idea of ‘work until you drop’ and young high-flying executives suffering from corporate burnout will be a phenomenon of the past,” he said.
He said finding work-life balance was not just a women’s issue but a universal concern.
“I am looking forward to the day when we have a balanced and happy workforce that will help us build strong families, strong societies and, indeed, a strong nation,” he said.
The trail blazers, the powerful women
He urged the trail blazers, the powerful women who had succeeded on their own, to come forward and share their knowledge and experience with others in forums such as the women’s summit.
He commended Women, Family and Community Development Minister Shahhrizat Abdul Jalil (pic) for the policies that had enabled women to have interesting careers while enriching their personal life.
In her welcoming remarks, Shahrizat jokingly told the audience: “We (women) are wondering what took the government and corporate organizations so long to make the necessary changes in the working environment in the quest of women (and men) for a happy balanced and productive working life.”
She added: “Most women have encountered adversity one way or another at the work place. “They have had to struggle for equal pay; equal perks and they have to work twice as hard as men just to be on equal footing”
She said gender equality is not only for women but also for the men and wished that in time there will be equal gender responsibility between husbands and wives.