Lentswe, Mahikeng - Head of Department for Human Settlements Kgomotso Mahlobo has urged senior women managers in the department to remain committed and be diligent in their work. Mahlobo was speaking during her consultative meeting held recently in Mahikeng on HODs 8-Principle of Action Plan for promoting Women Empowerment and Gender Equity in the workplace as part of the Public Service Women in Management Week.
Mahlobo said the session is one of the most important as it affords women in senior management positions to converge and reflect on various issues affecting them in the workplace as well as coming up with possible solutions to addressing them. “It is important to take advantage of such initiatives as we will be able to make the workplace a better place”.
According to her, gender equality and women empowerment in the workplace aims to inspire women in senior management positions to become resilient and effective leaders.
The Public Service Women in Management Week seeks to assess progress made by Government Departments in their implementation of the Head of Department’s eight Principles Action Plan for Promoting Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality in the Public Service. These include transformation for non-sexism, establishing a policy environment, Meeting equity targets, creating an enabling environment, Gender mainstreaming, Empowerment, providing adequate resources, accountability and monitoring and evaluation, all of which align with the DPSA framework about empowering women and closing the gender gap.
“This session forms an integral part in the emancipation of women, therefore it is important for women in management to prioritize the session and make valuable inputs that would have positive impact in the empowerment of women,” said Mahlobo.
She further acknowledged the department for maintaining 50% of employment of female senior managers and will continue with that streak. She said the department will appoint an employment equity committee and they will have meetings on a quarterly basis. The other resolutions include continuing with gender and disability legislation workshops, handing over Gender Mainstreaming workshops to HRD sub-directorate and encouraging more women to participate in female infertility health screenings.
Lastly, Mahlobo reminded women to fix each other’s crown as women. She also highlighted how women’s mistakes are magnified so much simply because they are women but they prevail through it all. “I commit to continuously working together with women in the department who are champions of these 8 principles to ensure that we do achieve them at all levels,” she concluded.
