Trust in women’s intuition; listen to them; and train yourself to become more aware of your “unconscious biases.”
These are just a few of the insights on how to create a gender-balanced workplace shared by male business leaders at the breakout session titled “He for She,” which was part of the forum “Women Next: Accelerating Tomorrow to Now,” organized recently by the Filipina CEO Circle (FCC) and the Management Association of the Philippines’ (MAP) Women Empowerment Committee in Pasay City.
Speaking about his stint at the Bank of the Philippine Islands, Aurelio “Gigi” Montinola III, who worked with the company for over 30 years and left as its president and CEO, said that equal opportunity goes a long way in creating a gender-balanced workplace.
“A CEO has to have a view, and one must put the right people in the right seats to execute that view. Recognize the best talent, regardless if it’s a man or a woman,” said Montinola, who is now chair of the Far Eastern University. In a slide, he presented some numbers: Out of its 1,500 employees, almost 54 percent of FEU’s faculty are women; a little over a third of its board seats are also occupied by women.
In another slide, Montinola, who said he wasn’t gender-conscious as a manager when he was in BPI—choosing, again, to recognize the ones with the best talent—displayed some of the company’s numbers before he left: almost 71 percent of BPI’s 15,000 employees then were female; a little over 68 percent of the officers were women; and almost 27 percent of board seats were occupied by women.
He also shared some of the lessons he learned when it comes to managing women: Listen to them, treat them as equals, assign them where they are strong and where they can also develop, trust their intuition, encourage them to have a balanced life, and guide them through the rough spots.
“Remember that men often think, transaction, [or] solving the problem immediately; women think, process—the details are just as important as resolving the problem,” Montinola said.
For Shankar Viswanathan, Procter & Gamble Philippines country manager, a gender-balanced workplace can only exist when its people are aware of their unconscious gender biases, whether they be male or female. P&G, he said, trains employees on how exactly they can catch these unconscious biases and therefore change their mindset.
“Knowing your biases is very important. I also get trained on this,” said Viswanathan. “In fact one of the biases I got trained on, is that when someone leaves the office at 3 p.m., don’t ask, ‘why are you leaving so early?’ It’s a very dangerous question, because it could do more harm than good. That person may have been working since 6 in the morning, or may have worked four hours and is going home to take care of the kids, and will start work again at 8 p.m.”
Henry Motte-Muñoz, founder of education-oriented social enterprise Edukasyon.ph, also touched on biases, which he said happens even before women enter the workplace: “Yes women go to university, but sometimes they take on more ‘feminine’ subjects, or [take on] certain career paths that are more women-friendly. So you can’t just tell them, ‘be the best you can be’; you need to address these biases.”
Muñoz added two more issues that should be addressed: that women bear more of the responsibility of childcare; and sexual harassment.
As for Mark Lwin, CEO of AIG in the Philippines (AIG Philippines Insurance and AIG Shared Services), company policy is key to helping women achieve some form of balance between work and their personal lives. For one, giving employees consistent work schedules—not rotating them on a regular basis—was a “leap of faith” which AIG took in terms of policy for their BPO office to help women also have a more consistent schedule at home.
“We lost some efficiency, but there were returns in terms of engagement and productivity,” said Lwin.
Aside from the “He for She” breakout session, 20 other talks were held during the one-day forum on topics such as the Art of Politics, the Gender Agenda, Leadership Disrupted: Creating Innovation, Investing in Me, and Networking.
Citing data from the World Economic Forum, FCC president Cristina Concepcion said that the gender gap will not close entirely until 169 years from now—hence the need for discussions such as those held during the Women Next forum.
“This is to spark the thinking and the realization that there is a problem and we need to fix it, because 169 years is too long to wait, ” Concepcion said. “If you look at the data, what does the data say? Just because women are in the workforce doesn’t mean women are at parity [with men], and it doesn’t mean women are in decision-making roles where you can actually transform. That’s where you want to be. It’s not just a numbers game—it’s about impact.” ANNELLE TAYAO-JUEGO