Safaricom is a rare gem for Kenya’s women folk in many ways, named best employer in Africa and 67th in the world by Forbes business magazine after ranking some 500 publicly-traded companies from 60 countries, the telco had another one coming.
From the firm’s annual report Safaricom employs about 6,000 staff members averaging 27 years as at end of March 2018, half are women. Not many firms can match that in Kenya, and most of Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly blue chip companies.
Whats more? Safaricom aspires to create more opportunities for women to transition into leadership positions so that by 2020 the proportion of women in senior management improves from the current 32 per cent to match that of men.
Paul Kasimu, the chief human resources officer says Safaricom is keen on gender equality. “Fifty-two per cent of our staff consists of women. We have engaged in various initiatives to empower and create opportunities for our women colleagues.
Last year, we collaborated with Mowgli Mentorship, a UK-based firm to provide mentorship to the women in Safaricom in a bid to increase the number of women in leadership in our organisation and to enhance capacity building. This mentorship programme is as a key initiative to increase above 50 per cent the female representation within Safaricom management by 2020,” he says.
One year ago, Safaricom made a commitment to work more with women-owned enterprises and special interest groups to increase the value of business sourced from them to 10 per cent in the next three years. During the launch of the Safaricom Women in Business Initiative, it was reported that out of more than 1,000 suppliers, only 27 were women. The number has since risen to over 100 since the initiative.