More UAE women business leaders than men prioritize investing in their workforce: KPMG study

More UAE women business leaders than men prioritize investing in their workforce: KPMG study

- Male and female leaders emphasize different ESG challenges

- The UAE Government is introducing sweeping measures to increase female representation in the C-suite, with recent studies showing a growth in female leadership in UAE boardrooms over the past two years

Dubai: Women leaders emerged as significantly more people-focused and empathetic than their male counterparts, with 64% of UAE women prioritizing investment in developing their workforce’s skills and capabilities compared with a mere 24% for men, who are instead prioritizing buying new technology. This is according to the latest edition of the KPMG 2022 Women Business Leaders Outlook, which surveyed women leaders from 50 countries, including the UAE.

Three quarters of UAE women leaders (72%) also felt their organization has a responsibility to help with reskilling the workforce to avoid lay-offs, compared with 60% of men.

The survey found that UAE women leaders are reconfiguring and securing the supply chain, advancing digitalization, connectivity, and cyber security resilience as a top priority. This differed from the priorities outlined by UAE male CEOs, who cited digitalization as a top priority, followed by inflation-proofing capital and input costs, and improving the employee value proposition to attract and retain talent.

UAE women leaders are confident of their business prospects