CAREER + MONEY

SUPPORTING WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP IN WORKPLACE

Supporting Women's Leadership in Workplace

15.04.2021
BY SARI KUSUMANINGRUM
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When we talk about equality in Indonesia, Indonesian women desperately need support from the public. According to gender equality research by McKinsey in 2018, the situation in Indonesia needs to be improved. In Indonesia, gender inequality is relatively high with an index point of 0.52, especially in the political sector which showed an index of 0.37. Not only in the political sectors, but Indonesia needs to improve their gender equality on the economic opportunity for women, and the security for women (their index showed 0.88, 0.82 respectively). 

Indonesia needs a gender-inclusive workplace. The Executive Director of IBCWE, Maya Juwita, said that there is much research that shows a positive correlation between gender diversity and business performance. According to the Indonesian Labor Organisation (ILO), in 2020,  77 percent of the 416 companies surveyed agreed that gender diversity helped their business performance. 

Therefore, this year,  Indonesia Business Coalition for Women Empowerment (IBCWE) along with Magdalene.co held an event called  Women Lead Forum 2021. An event that discussed gender equality in the workplace, on April 7 and 8, 2021. 

In this event, several topics were discussed along with the panel; among others ‘Between Domestic Responsibilities and Job Opportunities’, ‘The Role of Companies in Supporting Gender Equality in the Workplace’, ‘The Normalization of Gender Equality Through Media’, and ‘Supporting Women’s Leadership: Policy and Changing Norms’.

This event is also supported by Investing in Women, an initiative from the Australian Government that also invited several influential women. The Minister of Manpower of the Republic of Indonesia, Ida Fauziyah talked about various conditions of gender inequality in her keynote speech. Her speech includes the various gender equality that is still found among Indonesian workers ranging from the imbalance in labour forces participation rates (TPAK), wage gaps, and the gender-based discriminatory that includes catcalling. 

Additionally, Ms. Ida Fauziyah also discussed the subject of women who are affected by the COVID-19 at their workplace. 

“For women, the pandemic situation has provided additional burdens, ranging from the loss of work or income, increasing the burden of household management due to the work from home, school from home situation, up to the domestic violence that also increases as found in global research,” she said. 

Since last September 2020, Magdalene has published several articles about women in the workplace and efforts to support women’s leadership through a microsite, womenlead.magdalene.co, a podcast titled ‘How Women Lead’ and FTW Media, through various contents in social media and an online video competition ‘#KantorDukungPerempuan’ on Instagram. 

The Chief Editor of Magdalene, Devi Asmarani said that the obstacles faced by women in the workplace have limited their opportunities to maximise their potential. Even though there are policies that support female workers. But in reality, the implementation of the policies supporting women in the workplace has not been optimal. 

“The company has a significant role to change the situation. Therefore, we aim at Women Lead Forum 2021 to unite the policymakers in the government, legislative institutions, and companies to share their knowledge and experiences, so that there would be lessons that could be learned and create strong synergies to achieve gender equality in the workplace,” Devi said. 

The Deputy Head of Mission of the Australian Embassy, H. E. Allaster Cox, stated that women’s leadership is one of the main drivers of gender equality mission and a significant influence in the efforts of a country’s economic recovery. 

“Therefore, Australia is proud to join hands with Indonesia on the journey of strengthening women’s representation in leadership and achieving gender equality in the workplace,” said Mr. Cox. 

#THE S MEDIA #Media Milenial

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