HE Shaikh Ahmed bin Ali Al Khalifa Zain Bahrain Chairman extends his sincere thanks and appreciation to Her Royal Highness Princess Sabeeka bint Ibrahim Al Khalifa, wife of His Majesty the King, President of the Supreme Council for Women on her significant efforts and contribution to ensure Bahraini women are well represented in the workforce as an essential member of the society, which made women hold high competence positions in the Kingdom.
Zain Bahrain Chairman praised Her Royal Highness, the wife of the King, the President of the Supreme Council for Women towards her social, cultural and leadership developments to all Bahraini and Arab women, through the support of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the King of the country, may God protect him.
Commenting on the award, Zain Bahrain Chairman, “Zain Bahrain is delighted to receive the first recognition of the sixth edition of Women Empowerment Award of HRH Princess Sabeeka bint Ebrahim Al-Khalifa, wife of HM the King, President of the Supreme Council for Women may God protect her, and would like to express his sincere gratitude to HRH Princess Sabeeka, towards Her Highness’s efforts and plans to empower and develop Bahraini women in holding high positions in the workforce while facilitating gender equality, which is a significant part of Zain Bahrain’s corporate sustainability program and is in harmony with Bahrain’s Vision 2030.”
Shaikh Ahmed continued “The recognition of this award is a testament to the success of the Gender Diversity initiative implemented in 2017 by Zain Group across all operations. Women Empowerment is central to our development as an organization and we are already enjoying many direct benefits on multiple fronts, whether it be productivity and our bottom line, or the increase of morale within the company.”
Zain Bahrain Managing Director, Mohammed Abdulla Zainalabedin added, “It is an honor for Zain Bahrain to win an award of this nature. At Zain, we operate on a specific system whereby staff is rewarded and recognized for their achievements. Part of that recognition involves providing our staff with opportunities to develop and fulfill their career potential, and this applies equally to men and women. This is an essential requirement to empower all our employees to do the very best they can, every day – which is what is required in a dynamic, growing business such as Zain. It is indeed gratifying to see our efforts rewarded by this first of its kind award in Bahrain.”
Zainalabedin continued, “This award recognizes our commitment to keep empowering all our employees and fulfill their career potential, irrespective of their gender. The representation of female leadership promotions in 2019 has increased to 24% and our female recruitment has increased from 15% to 34% through Zain Youth Program.”
In addition to Zain’s Bahrain substantial support of various women empowerment programs, Zain has received the award for integrating policies that support women in their careers. In particular, Zain has modified its policies to support and ensure that women are not disadvantaged in their career when raising a family, especially during pregnancy and the first years of their children’s lives giving them a total of four-month maternity leave and extended designated child care hours for the first four years. Shared parenting is a concept that Zain Bahrain promotes, which has led to different initiatives such as; birthday leave and Back to School free hours especially on the first day of school.
In 2019, Zain Bahrain has sponsored and participated in many events that supported women empowerment and diversity in the workplace such as Women Empowerment Summit, Epay and Unbound 2019.
Other projects included the Women Empowerment initiative (WE) that was launched in 2018 in cooperation with Bahrain Society for Training & Human Resource Development (BSTD) to develop women’s leadership skills through gender equality in each sphere of activity and various aspects of development.
Zain Bahrain has also organized a “Women in Tech” summer internship program last year for all women who are majored in a relevant technical field such as IT and network to discover their capabilities and identify their career path through exploring their true potential and understanding the dynamics of the corporate workplace in the technology divisions. The Women in Tech summer program comes under Zain’s Youth empowerment program as a key pillar in contributing to society and Zain Bahrain’s goal of embedding a socially responsible culture through Zain operations in general.
Zain Bahrain is delighted to continue embracing community equity in Bahrain to build a society where men and women are equal in the workplace to act, lead, develop and succeed.