Saudi Women Firm Assumes Role of Employment
Bureau
Arab News - 14 April, 2007
As part of its initiative to promote job opportunities
for Saudi women, a Riyadh-based women-only company is acting as an
employment bureau for Saudi women.
“We launched this project to
help qualified and skilled Saudi women find suitable career opportunities
in the private sector in the Kingdom,” said Banan Abutair, chairperson of
ECSA Hire and Higher, the Kingdom’s first-ever women’s employment
bureau.
She added that women have always played a major role in the
development of Saudi society. “We want to help them play an equally major
role in the sustainable development of Saudi economy, which they have been
deprived of in the past.”
The company maintains a databank
comprising over 3,000 women, 70 percent of whom are Saudis. “Those
registered with us are interested in finding suitable placements in jobs
relating to administration, IT, marketing, accounts, customer relations,
finance and call centers,” she said.
She recalled that last year,
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah indicated that with the
help of the Human Resources Development Fund around 200,000 Saudi women
would be employed in various sectors in the Kingdom. “We are trying to
fulfill the king’s expectations in our own modest way,” Abutair
said.
The company, which has a registered office in the United
Kingdom, will have an office in the Eastern Province to cover neighboring
Bahrain during the second quarter of this year. Another branch will be
opened in Jeddah at the end of 2007, she added.
Describing her
company as a specialized headhunting agency, Abutair pointed out that ECSA
stands for “Empowering Capabilities, Skills and Aptitudes.”
“We are
in the final stages of completing a highly specialized online tool that
would enable prospective jobseekers and employers to access our databank
for their requirements,” she said.
Saima Sofi, executive director
of ECSA, said that the company has found placements for over 200 women at
companies such as Sama Airlines, Four Seasons Hotel, the World Trade
Center and the Manhal Center in a very short period of time. “We are also
the key recruiting agency for the Saudi Monetary Agency (SAMA) and ABB,”
she added.
Speaking about employment prospects, Sofi said the most
sought after fields for women include the IT, administration, finance,
public relations, customer relations and marketing fields. “We are also
planning to provide orientation and training program for those women who
fall short of certain skills and experience,” she added.
“We are in
the process of identifying key areas of skill and technique shortages and
we will be employing the services of experts to develop customized and
specifically tailored curricula that we will offer to job applicants and
also to our client companies,” she added.
The executive director
said the company had developed its various departments with expert
consultants (women recruiters) who handle all types of placements for
women job seekers. “We aim to become leaders in professional human
resource providers within the Kingdom. Our main goal is to set the
standards by which recruiters practice business in the Kingdom. We also
aim to bring on board the highest level of professionalism that should be
accepted by the private sector,” she said.
Speaking about the
challenges of Saudization with regard to women, Saima said, “Often the
client companies have very high expectations of the deliverables from the
female staff they wish to employ. They expect certain levels of work
experience, which cannot be available because the hiring market for women
is still so young and often most of them shun the idea of hiring fully
covered ladies.”
She said companies often fail to understand that
there is little correlation between women who cover their face and their
level of skill and productivity. “We find that some of the most able
candidates on our database are covered ladies, but this is an obstacle
that we cannot overcome with companies who are customer-facing
establishments,” said Saima, adding that it was hard for them to stipulate
ideas for the corporate sector.
“We face great issues with women
who are perfect for the work environment, but cannot work in mixed
environments. Finding women-only sections is not only difficult, but also
it is fairly redundant since instructions must come from senior management
of a company who generally tend to be men. Cultural acceptance from many
levels will need to come into place before these areas of apprehension
dissipate,” said
Sofi. |