Why now is the time to talk about women's workplace health

On the number of women surveyed in the UAE, 56% felt their company supports and encourages positive employee wellbeing.

Health needs of women and men are quite different, and yet, historically, this has been overlooked when it comes to the workplace. This has led women to make difficult decisions that they shouldn’t have to make, such as choosing to leave their employer, shifting to part-time hours, turning down promotion opportunities, or retiring early.

Recently, healthcare insurance players Sukoon Insurance PJSC (“Sukoon”) and Bupa Global partnered with Arabian Business and launched a comprehensive survey to assess how women can be at their best, both physically and mentally, in the workplace.

The comprehensive survey of women in the UAE, aimed at assessing how they can be at their best – both physically and mentally – in the workplace, found that 56% of women felt their company supports and encourages positive employee wellbeing. This is important following a year where 42% of women surveyed indicated that their mental wellbeing was negatively impacted as lines between work and home life blurred during the pandemic.

While the most-reported concern was job security, working mothers also reported higher fears of getting infected with the virus, as compared to women with no children. These and other survey findings were shared during a webinar How Can Organisations’ Help Women Bring Their Best Selves to Work that also explored the implications on employers and employees.

“It’s always a good time to talk about women’s health in the workplace but now it is absolutely critical. The effect of Covid-19 has made a difference: on the negative side, the pandemic has exposed some of the biggest challenges that we face as a society and exacerbated some of the issues that women already face, particularly the blurring of work and home life which continues to be a struggle, as the survey indicates,” said Anna Russell, CRS Director at Bupa Global & UK and Director of Bupa Foundation.

“On the positive side, employers are really open to having those conversations nowadays, so that is why right now is absolutely the right time to be having these conversations,” she continued as part of the panel discussion.

The pandemic has brought more awareness to mental health in the workplace and 42% of the women surveyed indicated their employers have shared information about mental health insurance benefits available and 44% have used those services.

Find out more about the survey findings and hear the webinar here.