KUALA LUMPUR, March 28 – There is a need for leaders not only to recognise the strategic importance of female talents but also to change their mindset to create long term winning strategies to attract, retain and develop female talents at all levels, said Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor(Pic). The Prime Minister’s wife said this was vital to strengthen the talent pool and achieve substantial performance improvements.
“Recruiting and retaining more women in the workforce are not only good for business but it is the right thing to do.
“Gender diversity brings greater value to an organisation’s performance. It is not about more frenzied recruiting or changing of the human resource processes in organisation,” she when opening the Women In Leadership (WIL) Forum here today.
Also present was Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen. The two-day forum is being attended by 33 prominent women leaders and speakers from 10 countries. Rosmah said top management must transform organisations from being just women friendly to one that enables them to stay ahead in their careers and to leverage on the cultural strength of gender diversity.
She said women at the the decision-making level in Asia was particularly low in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, India, Singapore and Malaysia whereby only 22 out off 700 boards had more than two female members.
“The exception appears to be China where 50 per cent of the companies have women on the board. This poor representation at top levels is a paradox considering that globally, more than 50 per cent of university graduates are
women.
“Female corporate employees tend to be concentrated in entry or middle level positions with low percentage of women at the more senior positions,” she said. She said companies in Asia too were reconsidering and reassessing their diversity and inclusion strategies.
She noted that the government was working on closing gender gaps and encouraging women to bring their skills to the labour market in the 10th Malaysia Plan which has made empowering women a key agenda.
“The government will increase its efforts towards addressing issues confronting women to enable them to realise their full potential and participate more effectively in the economic and social development of the country,” she added.
Meanwhile, at the function, the Managing Director of the Sintesa Group, Shinta Widjaja Kamdani, was named ‘Leading Businesswoman of The Year’. Sintesa Group is an Indonesian conglomerate of 17 subsidiaries which operates in the consumer and industrial products, property, real estate and energy sectors.
BERNAMA
