Dialogue on the Women’s Empowerment Principles : the Bewsys Case Study

On 27th May, 2022, the UN Global Compact Ghana together with Bewsys successfully held an event dubbed “Dialogue on the Women Empowerment Principles: the Bewsys case study. 

The virtual event was moderated by Tolu Lacroix, the Executive director for the UN Global Compact Ghana. Bewsys was represented by Robert Okine (CEO), Sandra Selby-Annor (Human Resources Manager) and Harriet Mate-Kole (Marketing Manager) in the panel discussion. 

Using Bewsys journey as a case study, the panellists demonstrated how businesses can play their role towards achieving gender equality. The event sought to sensitize businesses on the importance of gender equality in the workplace, and to create awareness on the Women Empowerment Principles and the WEP Gender Gap Analysis tool.

The insightful panel discussion highlighted how Bewsys constantly promotes gender equality in the workplace, their journey and what they have been able to achieve with regards to gender equality.

Robert, speaking from a leadership perspective and as the founder and CEO of Bewsys said “I believe that gender equality can be attained in the shortest possible time if everyone makes a commitment and has a strong will to advance gender equality in all forms in all environments. We cannot pursue any sustainable transformational change without the active participation of women in an empowering and enabling environment.”

Additionally, he presented some impressive statistics on gender equality at Bewsys. He said,

“Our Gender Equality Commitment has enabled us to develop a human resource that is challenging the status quo of what a tech company looks like. We have 49% company-wide women representation with 30% being software engineers with less than 5% turnover rate by women. Additionally, 50% of our management team are women and coincidentally a woman champions all our sustainability initiatives. 

This is a major milestone for us because we exceed the global average statistics of 24% women representation and 45% turnover rate by women in the tech industry.”

Sandra tackled the issue of gender equality from an HR perspective where she advised that gender equality should be prioritized to provide all employees with a quality living standard, promote the retention of star performers for economic growth, and contribute to improved maternal care, parenting, and childcare for a sustainable future for all.

When asked what the Women’s Empowerment Principles meant to her as an individual and marketer Harriet said, “The  Women’s Empowerment Principles are commitments that guide organizations that are keen on building diverse and inclusive organizational cultures. As a marketer, I find it very valuable that the principles highlight how essential gender equality is and how it can be attained at different levels of an organization's value chain. The WEPs show that gender equality is a multi-faceted subject that must be advanced holistically.”

The UN Global Compact Network Ghana Team encouraged participants and businesses to commit to the WEP’s. They also presented the WEPs Gap Analysis Tool to help businesses measure and report and uphold their commitment to  gender equality in the workplace, marketplace and community.  

Individuals and businesses ought to understand the role they have to play in advancing gender equality. Remember that if an organization does not know where to begin its sustainability journey, advancing gender equality is one of the fastest and surest ways to impact all the 17 sustainable development goals because women are disproportionately affected by each goal.