Government Policies Should Encourage Women in the Workplace

TLME Chairman Joe Beydoun asked the panellists during the session related to women in logistics what they thought governments were doing, and what they should do, to ensure that more women participated in the workforce across all sectors?

Eva Mattheeussen, Head of HR, MEA and Global Project Lead at DHL Global Forwarding said that at DHL they had reviewed parental leave policies in different countries in order to arrive at the best global standard internally.

As a major multinational company DHL believed that the percentage of female workers inclusion can definitely be improved across the world. Governments must ensure that the regulatory environment also promotes greater participation by women in transport and logistics operations.

Flexible work options are also slowly being offered by logistics companies but its important that the right infrastructure is in place to make it work move in the right direction, concluded Ms Mattheeussen.

CEO & Partner of Vespucci Maritime and shipping industry thoughtleader Lars Jensen said that when it came to abilities and skills there was no difference between men and women. However, there were cultural differences from country to country where job biases were based on centuries old traditions.

According to Mr Jensen there is only one physical aspect that differentiates women from men i.e. the ability to bear children which brings up the question of maternity leave and what are the rights you give to women on that score.

Priyanka Ann Saini, MD, Marketing and PR, Supply Chain and Logistics at Charlie Pesti emphasised on the need for better research and data collection to find what exactly are women’s requirements from their workplace by talking to the women in the organisation themselves.

Armed with this data governments can then bring in regulations to incentivise women’s inclusion across the workforce. Again, based on this data companies can ensure that they are providing the right brick and mortar infrastructure to cater to women’s needs, concluded Ms Saini.

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