A glowing future for the Saudi working woman

“A risk we took two years ago today pays off with Glowork. Change is a matter of risk and persistence.”

So tweeted Khalid AlKhudair - founder of Glowork, the kingdom's first portal for female recruitment - triumphantly after the company’s first recruitment fair. Because, as their tagline states: “there’s no gender in success.”

Almost half of Saudi Arabia’s population of 28 million are women – and they are highly educated. Having only been allowed an education since 1964, some 60% now have university degrees.

LINGERIE SHOP CHANGE

The kingdom has a highly educated base of women, with thousands more graduating every year. But there are still many limitations on them working – having to spend 30% of their salary on a driver, needing a separate working area to male colleagues and requiring permission from their guardian to work.

[Related timeline: Women and work in Saudi Arabia]

Alkhudair, 29, set up Glowork in 2011 after seeing his sister Aya’s struggles. Soon after, King Abdullah historically gave women the right to vote and set in place other reforms for women such as working opportunities in lingerie shops.

Then came the Saudisation drive, Nitaqat. Nitaqat (naturalisation) aims to boost employment for Saudis, by ensuring every firm reserves 10% of jobs for Saudis. It also forces the Kingdom’s nine million foreign workers to work only for their legal sponsors, performing only the job listed on their job card, thus eradicating illegal immigration.

UNEMPLOYMENT DATABASE

As it undertook this mammoth challenge, the Ministry of Labour partnered with Glowork to reduce the 2.4 billion Saudi riyals ($640 million) spent on unemployment benefits each year. It gave Glowork access to all its unemployment data, including 1.6 million CVs - 1.2 million of which came from women.

[Related story: The culture is changing for women, says jobseeker]

Glowork charges employers for each candidate and for access to its database of resumes, as well as being paid a fee by the government for every woman it puts in a job.

Members now include KPMG, Unilever, Oracle, HP, PWC and General Electric, as well as local firms such as Saudi British Bank (SABB) and Olayan Financing Group. And in just two years, Glowork has created 11,000 jobs for women.

'TABOO BROKEN'

A Step Ahead was Glowork’s way to bring women and recruiters face to face. Starting in Riyadh with a conference for 300 female university students graduating this year, it culminated in a recruitment fair for 11,000 women with 40 companies setting up shop.

Abdullah Al Fozan, chairman of KPMG in Saudi Arabia, said at Step Ahead: “What has happened in the last two years is a huge improvement. Now we get rewarded for employing women.”

[Related story: 'Saudi women are up to the challenge']

Al Fozan still hopes KPMG will be the first company in Saudi Arabia to hire a woman partner. “Nationality or gender is not what gets you promoted – just talent and work,” he said.

‘WALK THE TALK’

Ziad Mortaja, managing director of HP Saudi Arabia, said his company was also looking to build up its female staff.

“We have gone from a workforce of less than 1% of women to more than 12% in four years,” he said. “We recruit based only on qualifications, irrespective of gender.”

Ghada AlJarboua, head of direct channels at SABB, who was sponsored by the bank to do a full-time MBA for a year, said: “We accept people on all programmes; there is no bias. We pay equally to men and women. We have drivers to take female workers to client visits, we are building a nursery. We do walk the talk.”

IMPROVING SAUDI WOMAN'S LIFE

Norah AlDamigh, a university student at Step Ahead to look for a summer training course or internship, said: “People outside always wonder about women and Saudi Arabia, because what you hear and what you read doesn’t really describe us.

[Related story: About A Step Ahead and Glowork]

“Thankfully the last 10 years the government has been trying really hard to improve the Saudi woman’s life. And women here are trying hard to improve their lives themselves, too.”

Shahd Attar, a marketing manager at Cisco who told the conference how she helped found CellA+, a network for 2,000 working women, said: “Women are playing a very important part in the kingdom’s economy.

“Companies realised that women, especially those with higher education, are a benefit to them. They need their talent and know-how.”

'WRITING HISTORY'

Abdulkarim AlReshad, vice-president for human resources at Saudi investment firm Olayan Financing Group, said: “I think opportunities for women are great and this is the right time for them to take advantage of them.

“I think we are writing history. This generation is changing the mix of talent in the local labour market and really creating a successful story.”

Al Fozan agrees. “That taboo, that women cannot work – it has been broken.”