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LEARNING RESOURCES
should be up to professionals when they work on these
deliverables or for how long. “It depends on their efficiency,
capability, and maybe life situations,” Malik added.
Unconscious Bias As Huq said, “The pandemic has demonstrated that we can
In this video, we’ll discover the work with babies on our laps.”
latest insights from gender and To support women’s career development, women finance
behavioural research and learn how professionals suggested businesses and individuals consider the
they can be used to close gender following strategies:
gaps through improved talent
management and more inclusive Promote flexible work hours
culture. Organisations everywhere, but particularly in South Asia, should
stop assessing employees by the hours they are present in the
VIDEO office, Huq said. Malik agreed: “This alone skews the situation
against women.” Performance and productivity should be
measured by what employees deliver and not when they clock in
and out of the office.
During the pandemic, organisations
took progressive decisions to adapt to
AICPA & CIMA Women’s Global challenges, and they should continue
Leadership Summit using these, said Kanika Magan, ACMA,
Come and join hundreds of CGMA, an MBA candidate at Cambridge
accounting and finance professionals Judge Business School in the UK. Like
who are committed to creating an many other organisations worldwide,
inclusive and equal profession, just Magan’s employer at the time resorted
like you. to remote working, flexible hours, and
virtual meetings when India went into
CONFERENCE lockdown in March 2020.
The finance profession learned to Kanika Magan,
adopt flexibility programmes and use ACMA, CGMA, is an
empowering technologies — such as MBA candidate at
employing drones for stock estimation Cambridge Judge
and verification — to continue Business School in
Strategies to support women’s functioning during the past 2½ years. the UK.
career advancement Until the pandemic, people thought that
Companies large and small can play a could never be done without being present physically, even
role in promoting work practices that though drone technology was available. Necessity pushed this
support women’s career advancement, mindset to change.
said Mehr Malik, CFO at Red Bull “We knew that finance professionals could work remotely, but
Pakistan. whenever we resorted to work-from-home in the pre-pandemic
For example, offering everybody the era, the perception was that we were on leave,” Magan said.
option to work part time or flexible Many organisations are now suspending their brick-and-
hours helps to remove the cultural mortar office spaces and establishing hybrid work environments.
stigma that careers should not be as They have learned to reduce time, effort, and expenses around
important for women professionals. Mehr Malik is CFO at travel and logistics and to manage employee expectations and
Open recruitment, transparent job Red Bull Pakistan. wellbeing by allowing more freedom at work, turning off
descriptions, and written and clear employee micro-management, and introducing yoga and
policies on performance evaluation and promotion practices meditation app memberships as employee perks, Magan said.
would also encourage more women to move into leadership. To “This should continue with the idea to make the workspace more
prevent inequalities and gendered discriminations during flexible and inclusive and not just as a response to an emergency.
motherhood, women professionals could be temporarily offered Every employee, including female professionals, would gain.”
roles in positions that do not require travel or longer hours so
that they can still hold management positions without Encourage women mentors and role models
compromising either family time or career growth. Mentoring initiatives, where more experienced and highly ranked
“The senior management has to define the job description professionals volunteer to mentor entry-level and midlevel
and the respective deliverables. Whether that deliverable is done professionals, increase participation and camaraderie,
in eight hours or 12 hours is up to the employee,” Malik said, particularly when women professionals are underrepresented.
referring to the scepticism with which working from home or Mentors understand the organisation’s written and unwritten
flexible hours are viewed on the subcontinent. rules. They can provide useful advice on growing professionally
Once there is clarity on what a role demands, what the and on the hierarchical ladder and answer specific questions the
specific and routine duties are, and when deliverables are due, it mentored might have about navigating the workspace.

18 I FM MAGAZINE I August 2022