Network aims to increase number of Saudi working women by 2030

February 14, 2017

Jeddah, Feb 14: Engaging more women in the workforce in Saudi Arabia is a key pillar in turning the recommendations of Vision 2030 into reality.

shahdShahd Attar, a Saudi young professional who co-founded the “CellA Network,” utterly disagrees with the saying: “Women are their own worst enemy.”

She told Arab News: “It makes me sad when I hear this (saying). In CellA (a network for professional women in Saudi Arabia), the idea is to surround yourself with positive energy by meeting other women who are encouraging, who believe that when they see you succeeding in your organization, it’s a success for all women.”

CellA, which means “connection” in Arabic, is the brainchild of Attar and her partner Ghada Al-Arifi.

Since they started the non-profit initiative in 2011, they have managed to connect qualified, talented women with employers who wish to utilize their skills and create a gender balance in the workplace. They hold regular meetings in Jeddah, Riyadh and the Eastern Province.
Since the beginning of the 2000s, the number of working women has been increasing in Saudi Arabia.

According to the Labor Ministry, as of 2016 there were 477,000 Saudi women working in the private sector.

The number is set to rise further following Vision 2030, which states that a major goal is “to increase women’s participation in the workforce from 22 percent to 30 percent” by 2030.

“Sometimes we have companies who are looking to implement (Vision 2030) and hire more women, but they ask: ‘Where are the women? We can’t find women’,” said Attar.

“That baffles me, because through this network I’ve met so many talented women who are ambitious, well-educated and want to find rewarding careers.

“So there’s a gap. I hope CellA is filling at least a small part of that gap to help women find rewarding careers and pursue their dreams.”
Attar’s career in the male-dominant field of information technology (IT) drove her to stand for all working women in her society. She believes the great thing about technology is that “it levels the playing field.”

Recruiters need hard work and talent, but she thinks Saudi society still has a long way to go to encourage more women in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math).

After finishing high school, she could not find an engineering school that enrols women. So she went to Dar Al-Hekma Private University for women in Jeddah and studied management information system (MIS), which she thought was “a great place to grow and flourish.”

She then pursued a master’s degree in business, specializing in entrepreneurship and technology management at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

Being a working mother with two children, she chose to do another master’s degree in software engineering and take evening classes at Prince Sultan University in Riyadh, where she is now finishing her thesis.

In 2006, she started working in business operations at Cisco in Riyadh, staying there for 10 years before joining the Saudi Telecommunication Co. (STC) as the female segment’s consumer insights manager.

“We’d like to have a better flow of opportunities where women can get the same access to opportunities,” said Attar.

“If she’s looking for a job, if she’s an investor and looking for business ideas, or if she’s a business owner and looking for clients, we’re creating a platform for women to empower and enable each other. We’re developing an environment where women help women.”

CellA invites inspirational figures who broke the glass ceiling to speak about their stories. They have invited businesswoman Lubna Al-Olayan and Nahed Taher, CEO of Gulf One Investment Bank.

“What I’m most proud of is that a lot of these women come out of these events with very powerful positive energy that they see other women who’ve done it,” said Attar.

“They feel inspired and learn from others, or they find a woman to hire or a partner, so it’s amazing what stories have come out just by enabling these women to meet and help each other.”

The initiative also run development workshops where small groups of women strengthen their networking and self-introduction skills.

“We offer a safe environment where you can practice, and other women you trust can give you feedback, so you can feel more confident,” said Attar. “The more you know about people and what they can do, the better you can recommend them.”

The meetings are for women only, but men can support them by recruiting, sponsoring meetings and recognizing talented women.

The challenges faced in the technology job market are that women need the right training and internships to become favored candidates.

“I think women need more experience in technology in order for them to develop their talents,” said Attar.

Her experience in IT was enhanced by joining internships at Cisco, developed by a Saudi management that focused on both men and women.

“I wish more companies would take on the challenge of inviting interns and giving them real projects to work on.”

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Gulf News
May 29,2020

Dubai: There aren’t that many job vacancies right now – but be prepared for a 15-20 per cent cut in salary expectations even for those positions that are still open. Businesses in the UAE are definitely not in a generous mood when it comes to hiring, with salary cuts now part of the new normal.

And they are definitely not willing to take on new hires without extracting some cost benefit from them. “We have seen major [salary] cuts across the board in hospitality, real estate, professional services and in retail,” said Vijay Gandhi, regional head at Korn Ferry Digital, the recruitment consultancy.

“And once the headcount correction is complete in [the local] financial services and energy sector, we may see more cuts in rewards and benefits in these categories as well.”

The salary cuts are slowly extending their way into the healthcare sector as well – just about every non-COVID-19 facing medical category is coming across cuts in the number of working hours and, by extension, their take home packages.

By end of June, more businesses and sectors in the UAE will have a better understanding of their short-term revenue prospects. By then, they will also have a better reading on what their staff strength should be – and whether there should be more trimming of the workforce. Or whether they should consider a few hires as well.

A long summer
So, realistically, it could be September before such decisions need to be taken. The coming weeks will then prove to be laden with anxiety for those who are expecting to land a job option after being laid off at their current employers.

There are multiple instances of recruitment decisions having been made in February/March, and then the companies rescinding those offers to the chosen candidates citing the business uncertainty.

“The decision to hire is taking longer – so job creation is now 4-6 weeks from interview and selection compared to 4-6 days in the past,” said Gandhi.

The lucky ones
Recently, free zones and other entities had made it easier for personnel on the visa of one entity being able to smoothly transfer to another if they are likely to be made redundant. “We are seeing more flexibility being offered by the authorities given the circumstances, and the visa transfer process is happening,” said Gandhi.

“But in the vast majority of cases, businesses are going to wait and watch before normal hiring activity starts. Organizations will look to hire from September.”

A few hires are still happening
Even in the business turmoil set off by COVID-19, a few categories are still offering jobs. At the entry level, logistics services personnel and drivers with experience remain in demand.

Not just “routine jobs, there have been confirmations in more technical roles such as procurement and operations in healthcare and e-commerce,” said Gandhi. “Employers should keep an eye for good talent and have the talent acquisition team actively looking for good profiles.

“As such, organizations are not only looking at “right sizing” in numbers but also “future proofing” on what kind of skilled talent will help them in the post-COVID-19 world.”

But for the candidates, the present will be about waiting around for the call to come.

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News Network
January 6,2020

Dubai/Washington, Jan 6: Tens of thousands of Iranians thronged the streets of Tehran on Monday for the funeral of Quds Force commander Qassim Suleimani who was killed in a US air strike last week and his daughter said his death would bring a "dark day" for the United States.

"Crazy Trump, don't think that everything is over with my father's martyrdom," Zeinab Suleimani said in her address broadcast on state television after US President Donald Trump ordered Friday's strike that killed the top Iranian general.

Iran has promised to avenge the killing of Qassim Suleimani, the architect of Iran's drive to extend its influence across the region and a national hero among many Iranians, even many of those who did not consider themselves devoted supporters of the Islamic Republic's clerical rulers.

The scale of the crowds in Tehran shown on television mirrored the masses that gathered in 1989 for the funeral of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

In response to Iran's warnings, Trump has threatened to hit 52 Iranian sites, including cultural targets, if Tehran attacks Americans or US assets, deepening a crisis that has heightened fears of a major Middle East conflagration.

The coffins of the Iranian general and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was also killed in Friday's attack on Baghdad airport, were passed across the heads of mourners massed in central Tehran, many of them chanting "Death to America".

One of the Islamic Republic's major regional goals, namely to drive US forces out of neighbouring Iraq, came a step closer on Sunday when the Iraqi parliament backed a recommendation by the prime minister for all foreign troops to be ordered out.

"Despite the internal and external difficulties that we might face, it remains best for Iraq on principle and practically," said Iraqi caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, who resigned in November amid anti-government protests.

Iraq's rival Shi'ite leaders, including ones opposed to Iranian influence, have united since Friday's attack in calling for the expulsion of US troops.

Esmail Qaani, the new head of the Quds Force, the Revolutionary Guards' unit in charge of activities abroad, said Iran would continue Suleimani's path and said "the only compensation for us would be to remove America from the region."

ALLIES AT FUNERAL

Prayers at Suleimani's funeral in Tehran, which will later move to his southern home city of Kerman, were led by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Suleimani was widely seen as the second most powerful figure in Iran behind Khamenei.

The funeral was attended by some of Iran's allies in the region, including Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Palestinian group Hamas who said: "I declare that the martyred commander Suleimani is a martyr of Jerusalem."

Adding to tensions, Iran said it was taking another step back from commitments under a 2015 nuclear deal with six major powers, a pact from which the United States withdrew in 2018.

Washington has since imposed tough sanctions on Iran, describing its policy as "maximum pressure" and saying it wanted to drive down Iranian oil exports - the main source of government revenues - to zero.

Talking to reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Washington from Florida on Sunday, Trump stood by his remarks to include cultural sites on his list of potential targets, despite drawing criticism from US politicians.

"They're allowed to kill our people. They're allowed to torture and maim our people. They're allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we're not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn't work that way," Trump said.

Democratic critics of the Republican president have said Trump was reckless in authorizing the strike, and some said his comments about targeting cultural sites amounted to threats to commit war crimes. Many asked why Soleimani, long seen as a threat by US authorities, had to be killed now.

Republicans in the US Congress have generally backed Trump's move.

Trump also threatened sanctions against Iraq and said that if US troops were required to leave the country, Iraq's government would have to pay Washington for the cost of a "very extraordinarily expensive" air base there.

He said if Iraq asked US forces to leave on an unfriendly basis, "we will charge them sanctions like they've never seen before ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame."

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Agencies
May 7,2020

A patient in hospital with Covid-19 has given birth to a healthy baby boy in Dubai.

The 25-year-old Indian was admitted to Al Zahra Hospital after testing positive on May 2.

Although the baby was not due to arrive until May 19, the woman went into labour three days later and delivered a healthy boy weighing 3.8kg.

The parents are yet to name the child, who has also been tested for the virus.

“When we first received the Covid-19 positive diagnosis, we were afraid for the health of both my wife and the baby,” said the boy’s father, who did not want to give his name.

“Thankfully with the help of the doctors and nurses at Al Zahra Hospital, my son was born with no complications and my wife remains in stable condition.

“We couldn’t be more grateful.”

Despite arriving two weeks early, both mother and child are doing well but will only be allowed to leave the hospital to return to their home in Dubai after they return three negative tests on the trot.

“The contractions started very suddenly and it all happened very quickly,” said Al Zahra Hospital nursing director Maysoon Yousef.

“The delivery took about 10 to 15 minutes which is something we do not see very often.

“There were no complications and both the mother and baby are in good condition.”

Strict measures are in place to ensure hygiene for those inside the hospital, as well as visitors.

The new mum and her son are in the same room as the baby needs to be nursed.

According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, a US national public health institute, there is no evidence that suggests the virus can be transmitted through breastfeeding.

New mothers infected with the virus should wear a mask, wash their hands before and after touching the baby.

“We operate by the latest Covid-19 international and local guidelines when it comes to the management of our maternity patients and otherwise,” said Dr Ghassan Lutfi, head of obstetrics and gynaecology at the hospital.

“We take strict measures to guarantee that there is no risk of cross contamination and that all our patients are in safe hands.”

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