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Maybank hosts forum for International Women's Day

07 March 2013

4 min read

Maybank today commemorated International Women’s Day by hosting a forum which aimed to examine issues pertaining to competition at the workplace and empowering women to use their strengths in supporting the organisation’s growth.

 

Entitled “Using your strengths to build a powerful workforce”, the forum saw three leading speakers share their thoughts on a wide range of issues to empower women to be future leaders.

 

They were Ms Lola Chetti, a people development consultant, executive coach and currently a volunteer for the UNHCR at a refugee center, Dato’ Noorizah Hj Abd Hamid, MD/CEO of PLUS Malaysia Bhd as well as Nora Manaf, Senior Executive Vice President and Head, Group Human Capital, Maybank.

 

Elaborating on the forum, Nora Manaf said that it was the fourth such event organised by the Bank and formed part of the Group’s sustaining commitment to recognise women’s contributions to the organisation.

 

“Women currently form some 54% of our workforce and have played an important role in the progress and development of Maybank. Some 41% of our women employees are today at middle and senior management levels and it is clear that they are increasingly shouldering the challenge of leadership roles in the Group,” she said.

 

“This annual event, therefore, is a reminder that the recruitment, retention, full participation, and advancement of women are business imperatives, and how we need to also focus on the value women bring to the workplace,’ she explained.

 

Nora said that the forum also touched on current challenges faced by career women and ways of overcoming them successfully. “Our intention is to deliberate on women’s workplace issues and practices/ programmes that can help women reach their full potential,” she said. “We want to focus on identifying issues and initiating change efforts to create an inclusive work environment, integrating diversity with Maybank’s core values to ultimately create an inclusive and equitable work environment as well as a peak performing culture.”

 

Nora added that as part of the discussions, the forum aimed to examine how professionals are creating new opportunities to achieve job satisfaction. “We want it to explore practical strategies for employees, particularly women, to project a positive professional attitude in creating a dynamic path for career advancement,” she said. “At the end of the day, we intend to further empower, engage and galvanise our employees about the work they do and encourage them to go the extra mile for themselves, their colleagues and for Maybank.”

 

The forum, which saw the attendance of more than 300 Maybank employees, included an animated question and answer session following the presentation by the speakers. It also included participation from Maybank employees in key international offices such as Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Hong Kong and Beijing who joined in via video conferencing.

 

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