Workplace ‘Designed for Women’ Proves Inclusion and Balance Focus Can Lead to Business Growth

By Rafiq Vayani

DUBAI: As the world marks International Women’s Day on March 8th, global progress on women’s rights is “vanishing before our eyes”, the secretary general of the UN, António Guterres, warned, saying the increasingly distant goal of gender equality will take another three centuries to achieve.

Women’s workplace equality is a key aspect in socio-economic deprivation and female empowerment. Still, in 2024, many workplaces are simply not designed with the needs of women in mind, or the many factors which would enable them to grow, flourish and achieve all that their male counterparts do.

As a business not afraid of taking bold steps, Dubai based, award winning independent communications agency TishTash, has created a 100% female workforce with a working environment designed especially for women’s needs.  Proving that when these workplace needs are met, women can flourish, the agency has achieved 3 years of significant bottom line growth and a 62% increase in turnover year on year from 2022 to 2023.

“Recent research by Bain & Company had 70% of GCC female respondents highlighting that gender bias and stereotypes represent one of their biggest challenges to workplace advancement, along with inadequate mentorship, training, and support for work-life balance”, says Natasha Hatherall-Shawe, CEO & Founder of TishTash Communications.  “Increasing women’s representation in the workforce is key to improving business results. Organizations undergo a “tipping point” in their journey toward gender equity success when women represent at least 30% of the total workforce. This effect is even more pronounced when women hold 30% or more of an organisation’s leadership roles. To this end, we intend to continue our commitment to training, inspiring, and empowering the next generation of female communications leaders”, she explained.

The agency’s commitment to designing a workplace for women includes the implementation of flexible working for all staff including a 4.5-day week, continued hybrid working, a “work from home country” allocation each year and other benefits.  The agency also boasts a myriad of industry leading women’s health policies including paid leave for fertility treatments, menstruation, and menopause.  

The results speak for themselves with a happy and loyal workforce, and brilliant, award-winning marketing and comms work being produced for clients: 50% year on year increase for the past 3 years.61% increase in turnover in the last 12 months (2022-2023)Significant client wins and international expansion.45% of the team have been with the agency for more than 5 years.8% company attrition45% of clients have been with the agency more than 4 years.Company achieved ‘Great Place to Work’ certification in 2023 with a score of over 95%.

Today the agency stands as a team of 68 women and is intended as a deliberate example of focus on the importance of policy change and operations that take into account the shocking statistics around the modern workplace for women and their workforce retention – an increase which benefits society as a whole, and not just the bottom line.