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Guest of honour, Indranee Rajah, Minister in Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Finance and National Development, emphasised the need for workplaces and workplace cultures that are supportive of families as a whole.
In conjunction with International Women's Day, DBS has held its International Women's Day Event 2024, attended by Human Resources Online, and highlighting its theme of 'Inspiring all to lift each other higher'.
Opening the event with a keynote speech, Minister in Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Finance and National Development, Indranee Rajah, the guest of honour, emphasised the need for workplaces and workplace cultures that are supportive of families as a whole.
"Workplaces that recognise and support the many different roles that women shoulder and which are family-friendly make a big difference. There are myriad ways in which workplaces can be family-friendly and supportive of women."
As elaborated by Minister Indranee, different roles in your organisation play different parts, albeit all are just as crucial:
- managers and senior executives set the tone in establishing a company culture based on mutual respect and empathy, and can ensure that meeting various work-life needs is ingrained in company culture,
- line managers are in charge of overseeing their team’s day-to-day work, and are key to creating a workplace norm with mutual understanding, and where employees' needs and circumstances are recognised and supported,
- co-workers too play a crucial role. It makes a big difference when work colleagues are supportive.
"Having such good practices does not just benefit the employees. It benefits the organisation as well, in terms of your talent retention, employee morale, recruitment, all of these things."
As women enter the workforce, these efforts complement the ways companies can help in their journey in the working world; mentorship, including women in discussions, allowing them to take on leadership toles, and setting high goals and expectations.
Also touched on in the speech, having flexible work arrangements (FWAs), in addition to progressive parental leave, is a key enabler for employees to better manage their work and family commitments, while allowing employers to better harness the potential of their workforce. To this end, Singapore has encouraged shared parental responsibility by enhancing paternity leave. Companies such DBS have already implemented the additional two weeks of government-paid paternity leave, Minister Indranee noted.
Speaking at the event and advocating for further progress, Piyush Gupta, CEO of DBS, added: "We’ve won a lot of battles, but the biggest battle is not won, and that is the battle of expectations and stereotypes.
"We’ve been layering on expectations, and the big challenge is how we redress those expectations – what is a role of a woman in society, and what is the role of a man in society. That takes a lot of work, and we have to work hard to change societal expectations. Until we do that, we’ll keep having this big gap between reality and expectations."
Karen Ngui, Group Head, Strategic Marketing and Communications, DBS and DBS Foundation Board Member, expressed: “Women have gone from kitchens to boardrooms and from followers to leaders, and this has been enabled by the entire ecosystem, including governments and corporations such as DBS, with progressive policies.
"The notion of work is important because through work, women have financial independence, and they can make decisions which bring quality to the workforce and to life by introducing diversity and different points of view.”
All images / Provided, DBS
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