The appointment last autumn of Ana Patricia Botin as Chairman of Banco Santander, one of the world’s leading banks, caused a stir in the international media as well as in professional circles not so much about how unexpected it was but about how it highlighted the lack of women occupying senior roles in the banking industry. A report by Oliver Wyman at about the same time covering 150 international financial services firms showed that only 11% of those heading a business unit or region were women, and just 4% were CEOs. It also highlighted the fact that HR and marketing roles tended to attract more women employees proportionally than other areas of banking.
In the UAE, by contrast, some 8,000 women make up almost 72% of all UAE nationals in the banking workforce, and around 43% of the total workforce overall.
This is in spite of the fact that banking is not the favourite choice of women employees – less than 5% of UAE nationals choose to go into banking, with more preferring the government jobs.
But the UAE still does well in comparison to other countries. Its performance in this respect has been enhanced over the years by the quota system set by the government for the banking sector back in the late 1990s, which has helped to bring the average emiratisation rate of banks up to around 32%.
The challenge here, as we see in so many countries around the world, is how women can get through into senior management roles in banking. Only 12% of them do at the moment. This is marginally better than in many countries, especially in this region, but it is by no means good enough. Why, if so many of the banks employ women, do they not seem to have the same opportunity for senior management positions as their male counterparts?
There seems to be no single answer to this conundrum, but it’s a nice problem to have since there is a solution – a number of solutions actually.
On the one hand, women in the UAE still tend to leave the workforce when they start having families, and do not come back. This is regularly seized upon in the media, in conferences and among economic planners as a significant wastage of productive capacity in the economy. It comes by and large from a deep and enduring culture in which a mother’s work is seen to be primarily in the home, whereas in reality young families around the world these days depend on not one but two salaries.
But there are other reasons. Despite its many positives and strengths, the current provisions of the UAE Labour Law provides for a mere 45 days maternity leave. Many countries are extending this period to 60, 90 or even more (Vodafone recently announced a global policy of 16 weeks) to ensure that mothers have the time to adjust to their new circumstances and make provision for their children, so they can return to work. Paternity leave is also on the increase for the same reasons.
Flexible working is also being encouraged mainly in developed economies so that mothers can achieve a balance with their family responsibilities while continuing to work. A number of banks in the UAE have started to explore this option, with job sharing achieving some success in some banks and others offering part time or reduced hours alternatives.
The fact is that the sum total of situations that women face in the banking sector, whether it is when they have children, or even when they find they are not being paid the same as a male counterpart doing a similar job, tends to have a dampening impact on their ability, ambition or enthusiasm to make it to the top.
The UAE Banks Federation welcomes the steps that the UAE Government has taken to support and strengthen the presence and participation of women throughout the economy, not just in middle ranking and junior roles but also at the top. The creation most recently by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai of the Gender Balance Council to ensure women have leading roles in the country’s development is a particularly important new initiative that will help to highlight where the most effective remedial action can be taken.
We also note the campaign launched earlier this year by the Bahrain Kingdom government and the country’s Supreme Council for Women, in partnership with industry leaders, to promote women in the country’s financial and banking sector as a welcome contribution to the region’s support for promoting women in the economy.
In plain terms, we cannot afford to waste the precious resource we already have in the UAEs banking industry. All the Federation’s member banks go to great lengths and put a significant amount of investment into training and developing their staff. The challenge they face is how to reduce the number of those who go through such programmes from dropping out of the workforce precisely when they would be expected to move up through the ranks.
The Federation takes this challenge very seriously and is working on a number of proposals to address it. To increase the number of senior management who are women by even 10% based on performance would put us ahead of our peer group. But we should, and will, aim higher.
By H.E AbdulAziz Al Ghurair, Chairman of UAE Banks Federation
