“If we want to maintain our competitive edge, we need to be aware of diversity in a broad perspective so as to be able to tap the full potential of talent. When we look at the current gender statistics for students at Jordan’s universities, women constitute approximately 40% and men approximately 60% - but in the future, we estimate that women will represent up to 80% of those studying at university. Consequently, we need to work with diversity and create an inclusive work environment which will attract a large proportion of the talent pool – namely women,” explains Nicola M. Billeh.

The Amman-based Nuqul Group, which has approximately 6,000 employees in 32 different regional and global companies, is one of the Middle East’s largest corporations. Even as a tourist in Jordan, you cannot fail to notice one of the company’s core products – the paper towels which, under their brand name Fine, are to be found next to almost every washbasin in Jordan. However, Nuqul is also known for being a company with interests in many different branches – from paper and printing to construction and car imports – so diversity is something that is practiced on many levels throughout the company.   

Pepsi’s best ‘diversity-man’ in the region

Being known for its multi-level diversity meant that Nuqul was an obvious choice as project partner in the Engendering the Public Sphere project. This project, initiated by the Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW) and KVINFO, supports the active participation of women within the Jordanian labour market. The Nuqul Group has been involved in the project since 2006, but it was not until the appointment of Nicola M. Billeh in 2007 that the project really attained ownership within the company.

“The project struck a cord with me and my values,” tells Nicola M. Billeh, continuing:

“In 2003 I got a job with Pepsi. Already then, I started to examine the proportion of women in the Pepsi workforce because in this American-owned company diversity and inclusion are central core values. As HR manager in Pepsi Jordan, I managed to increase the percentage of women in the company from 1% to 4% giving Pepsi’s diversity programme here in Jordan a far higher success rate than the other Pepsi companies in the Middle East.”   

“My interest for diversity was sparked by my MBA in Human Resources. I studied and took my degree in the USA and here I learnt about American labour market legislation. At the same time, my eyes were opened to the coming challenges facing the Middle East and I started to study how the Jordanian labour market looked statistically. My conclusion was that both Jordan and the rest of the Middle East needed to change course and create an inclusive work culture that can attract a talented workforce.”

Values rather than strategies

When it comes to working with gender in relation to diversity, Nuqul does not have a specific strategy but rather adheres to the company’s core values and its policy of non-discrimination.

“When we hire people, we don’t look at their gender or their age. We only look at their skills and competencies, but we are vigilant to the fact that no one is prejudiced at an interview,” emphasises Nicola M. Billeh.

In conjunction with the JNCW partnership, the ‘gender-temperature’ among Nuqul’s employees was taken in December 2009. The findings were compiled in the report Analysing Gender in the Private Sector (A Study of Nuqul Group) by Dr. Abeer Basheer Dababneh from The University of Jordan and Dr. Amal Salem Al- Awawdeh from Jordan’s Al- Balqa Applied University.

The report shows that although men are represented to a greater extent in the higher, decision-making management positions, women are represented proportionately strongly in administrative posts with 62.5% at boardroom level – the majority being secretaries. However, one out of Nuqul’s six top managers is a woman. Similarly, among the company’s Administration Managers is one woman and four out of the sixteen departmental managers are women. Fundamentally however, the report shows that Nuqul is gender segregated according to job function – for example, there are no women employed in IT or accounting. One noteworthy area highlighted in the report is the fundamental importance of language in creating diversity.

“Creating a common understanding throughout the company is a big challenge, but it’s something we are consciously working on. Most senior employees speak English – and that’s the most important thing.”

“To begin with, language’s importance for creating an inclusive working environment was unclear. But in a company which has a staff represented by 33 nationalities who all need to cooperate with each other, we became very aware that different people with different backgrounds have very different ways of communicating. In order to ensure that everyone feels included and understands what we are talking about, we translate our communication tools in order to achieve a tolerant and accommodating work environment.”

Changing attitudes to accept women as breadwinners

According to Nicola M. Billeh, if the full potential of talent is to be made use of, the general attitude towards work in the Middle East, regarding age and gender, needs to be changed.

As stated in the report Analysing Gender in the Private Sector (A Study of Nuqul Group), the company employs many women between the ages of 20-30 years in particular constituting 47.2% of that demographic section of the workforce, and in the 30-50 years bracket, 28.6% of the employees are women. However, the company has no women employees over the age of 50. According to Nicola M. Billeh, there are several different reasons for this:

“Our attitudes towards work already begin to be formed in the home and at school: girls must learn that they can look after themselves and not be dependent upon a man, and that it’s not a man who is responsible for her, not even economically. Even when women have previously worked, once married they begin to withdraw and have less desire for promotion, to go on business trips or to have as long working days as before.” 

In a society such as that in Jordan, the family also plays an influential role in dictating how an individual man or woman conducts his or her life – and this poses a challenge to companies when hiring new employees:

“If a husband knows that his wife, daughter or sister is working in a safe and discrimination-free environment, he will encourage the woman to work. But there aren’t very many companies that can provide such an environment – especially not the many small companies. Therefore, drastic changes need to be made to the approach to gender and sexual harassment at a political and legislative level.  This shouldn’t be something that the individual company itself has to incorporate into its values and HR policy.”

“We ought to have labour market legislation that prohibits gender and sexual harassment. That’s why we are endeavouring to set up a partnership with the Jordanian labour ministry - so they know what we’re talking about and so they can see how it will benefit the future of the country.” 

“At the same time, we’re facing the challenge of the Middle Eastern mindset towards age where there is a tradition of retiring at an early age. Already by the age of 45, women are considering withdrawing themselves from the labour market – men begin doing the same by the age of 55. This means that we’re prematurely losing a significant proportion of an experienced and skilled workforce – including women – perhaps, to begin with, to consultancy positions. This is gradually beginning to change and the government is also waking up to the problem, also because people are living longer which is putting a drain on pension funds.” 

“Here at the Nuqul Group – and let me stress that we’re only talking about the headquarters and the top levels of the company here, because we haven’t reached production levels yet – employees have a unique opportunity for personal development through their work as the company offers the same development opportunities to the male and female employees. We also offer women the same insurance options as the men get. Most other companies only offer coverage to the women employee herself and not to her family, whereas a male employee’s family will be covered by the insurance as he is considered the breadwinner. But not us. We provide both the male and the female employees – and their families – with full insurance coverage.” 

The report also documents the fact that the majority of both male and female employees believe that the policy of equality in the Nuqul Group is helping the company to develop. Or, as Nicola M. Billeh puts it:

“Male employees at Nuqul also want change and are pleased to have female colleagues.”

A desire to share its experiences with other companies in the region

“We are working hard to become the best company in the region and, as the largest company in the Middle East, we have also become a role-model. That’s why we want to share our experiences with other companies.” 

Under the Danish-Jordanian partnership, Engendering the Public Sphere, the Nuqul Group and the Danish healthcare company Novo Nordisk (lead by Nicola M. Billeh and Novo Nordisk diversity specialist Eric Dziedzic) have held a number of workshops for businesswomen and employees in the HR sector in Jordan. As Nicola M. Billeh explains:

“We see it as our duty to share our knowledge with the rest of society. This requires passion and a belief in diversity – not to mention a lot of hard work. But we love it and we are working very hard to ensure that it succeeds.”