Telenor Pakistan Champions Gender Equality and Inclusiveness in the Workplace

Telenor Pakistan takes pride in leading the way when it comes to workplace inclusion and has established itself as a true champion of diversity. In line with this commitment, in 2018 Telenor Pakistan joined hands with Champions of Change Coalition, Australia under their group Male Champions of Change, Pakistan to promote policies and best practices to drive female participation in the workforce.

The Champions of Change Coalition Impact Report 2020 highlights significant developments in this domain.  The report is an annual study with data from 185 organisations, operating in 155 countries, and is one of the largest cross sector voluntary public disclosures on gender equality measures globally. More than 250 leaders of these organisations are active contributors in making workplaces around the world safer, respectful, and inclusive environments for women.

Telenor Pakistan thrives on its diversity. Be it diversity of thought, culture, gender or differently abled people but it also actively works for their inclusion. The organisation has been recognised by HR Metrics for having the ‘Best Practices’ for Diversity & Inclusion in the category of ‘Flexibility, Work life Integration and Benefits.’ Some of the initiatives that embody the spirit of inclusiveness include, Naya Aghaaz, a platform for women who have been on hiatus from their careers and want to re-join the corporate world, and/or women who had never had the opportunity to work before. Flexible working hours and working from home under the industry first ‘Go Beyond’ work model, transportation for female employees, giving them yet another motivating factor to join the workforce. The organisation also offers a salaried leave of six months during the maternity period. There is also an in-house day care to facilitate working mothers.

Earlier this year, Telenor Pakistan partnered with the World Bank for the ‘Girls Learn Women Earn’ Initiative with a pledge to train 1000 women entrepreneurs. It’s a commitment and a promise to create awareness, champion advocacy and take action to support girls’ education and women’s active participation in the Pakistani workforce.

“Telenor Pakistan works to provide new and creative solutions with the goal of social development and betterment of every individual, irrespective of gender. We stay true to this approach both within and outside the walls of our organisation, where female inclusion can have a far-reaching social impact that empowers them to make significant contributions towards the socioeconomic development of their families and communities”, said CEO Telenor Pakistan, Irfan Wahab Khan. He further said about his role in the Male Champions of Change, Pakistan “I feel great honour in being included amongst other leaders of change and I have taken on this task personally as part of our business strategy in working constructively towards a diverse organisation, thus creating the workplace conditions and cultures that enable women to thrive in leadership roles.”

“With years of leading the agenda of gender equality and women’s empowerment on both fronts of advocacy and action; in Pakistan and globally; Male Champions of Change has emerged as the most tangible, actionable and promising initiative to make the needle actually move on the agenda of gender equality in Pakistan” said Fiza Farhan, Global Strategic Development Advisor and Convener of MCC in Pakistan. She added, “In a country with 98% leadership being men, the issue of gender equality was historically talked about by women to women, in a room full of women. Male Champions of Change questions that narrative by enabling men in leadership positions to step up for gender equality beside women in order to create REAL change.”

The report shows quite a positive change since its launch in 2018, with numbers showing greater inclusiveness of women in the workplace than before. Telenor Pakistan is proud to play its part in positively impacting these numbers; 84.6% of Members have achieved or improved gender equality overall. Telenor Pakistan invests time and effort into charting out a career growth plan for our female talent and increasing the talent pool for future recruitment through various initiatives including its internship programme. The numbers in the report show the impact these efforts have with 81.4% of the organisations having rates of women’s promotions that are either gender balanced or greater than women’s representation overall and 84.8% of Member organisations achieving gender balance in recruitment, or a level of women’s representation in recruitment that improved women’s representation in the past year. Being a pioneer in flexible way of work and an ethically responsible organisation, Telenor Pakistan is proud to see 95.3% of the organisations have a formal policy or strategy in place for preventing and responding to sexual harassment and 94.0% are mainstreaming flexible work.

The report details the actions and impact of advancing more and diverse women into leadership and building respectful and inclusive environments for all employees. This year’s report by the Champions of Change Coalition shows an improvement in organisational gender equality actions and a sustained increase in women’s representation in most employment categories, since the launch of the first Impact Report in 2018.

Read the full report here: https://championsofchangecoalition.org/resource/champions-of-change-coalition-impact-report-2020/