Work for success this Women's Day

International Women's Day is celebrated every year to encourage women to reach their peak levels of success without worrying about being judged - as our brave women from the past have struggled to bring in social changes to gender and uplifting equality regardless of boundaries. "I am happy that we are now celebrating International Women's Day and according to me, I think every other day should be International Women's Day as it is a day to highlight the challenges that women face all over the world whether it is social or professionally," said Dr. Reem Osman, CEO of Saudi German Hospital Group, UAE.

Dr. Osman studied all her life in Syria, specialising in medicine and completed her masters' education in ophthalmology.  Of course, just like other women, she has witnessed many challenges.
She said: "It depends as per the place you are in, maybe sometimes there are cultural challenges; some conservative regions worldwide do not allow women to exercise their rights, whether it is in education, in work, or basic rights.

"As much as women are slowly fighting for themselves and have significantly reached ahead in terms of battling ridiculous stereotypes, 'equal pay for equal work' is something that hasn't been incorporated in a lot of places yet.

"In other areas, you can see that the woman might have the right to education even for work, but the payroll between genders is also an issue in other communities, even though studies confirm that the pay-scale is the same, the job might pay less," notes the CEO.

According to Dr. Osman, it is also often noted that besides employability and professional issues, there are behavioural challenges that women might undergo - families may disapprove of women balancing work life and home life - there is a constant debate between a breadwinner's role and that of a homemaker - but why can't a woman balance both? After all, life is all about multi-tasking!

"If you don't have proper support from your family, you will not be able to achieve your targets in life," said Dr. Osman. In her opinion, many challenges that are different from country to country, from community to community, from place to place, will depend on the economic and social situations, it will affect and reflect into different types of challenges from place to place.
When asked about whether enough has been done to promote women from the workplace, Dr. Osman disagreed. "Of course, not yet. It will need a lot of work to have proper promotion systems (in terms of work promotion) for both genders whether it is regulatory efforts or organisational efforts."

However, she warns us not to be confused in the sense that women should be given promotions because they are "women". "I am talking about giving proper opportunities and fair opportunities for both male and female professionals in their promotions and their career growth," she said.
Young women are now standing up in support of women around the world, and Dr. Osman admires those who break their bubble in order to do things they have never done before.

"Always invest in yourself. The most important asset of yours is you. Invest in education. The certificates we get are not the only things that will help us in our career. At times when we break out of a bubble, we might be surprised. Thus, they must expand their experience, knowledge, be open to many experiences, read more, learn from others, not be afraid of challenges, not be afraid of taking risks, of failure, which is the most important," said Dr. Osman. She feels that any failures should be considered as a success or a learning experience.

Speaking of obstacles, Dr. Osman has a lot of experiences as people around her never really saw her success growing into a CEO, in the right manner. "Everyone guarantees that you will fail. That's how it is. When I took over as the CEO of the hospital, many people thought: 'she will fail', 'she will not achieve', 'she will not do it', 'she will be successful only for the first year because she has support'."

Dr. Osman says that to prove yourself right, it is harder because everyone, in the beginning, will look at you with suspicious eyes and a growing curiosity of questions. How did she overcome these obstacles and thoughts of people? It is much easier than we think. She said, "I overcame this by not listening to things like that, or not even thinking about it. Another advice to the young ladies is to work in a place they like. Don't just work for anyone, it should be their passion, and it should be a place that they love to work in and will be successful in. I am really enjoying what I do. I am so busy that I do not have time to think about what others would be thinking about or judging my job."

Dr. Osman's experiences have aided her personal growth, and she always makes sure she is in direct contact with her coworkers."I am not an isolated CEO; I like to communicate directly. I feel I am a lot more mature now and that I am more patient on challenges. Before, I would get upset fast or get afraid more. Now I think deeply and solve problems, considering it more as an opportunity to improve myself," she noted.

With International Women's Day, and the theme to #BalanceForBetter, Dr. Osman concludes with a positive note: "Congratulations to all of us on International Women's Day. Congratulations to the men for celebrating their mothers, their sisters, their friends, their co-workers, their wives, and their daughters this Women's Day. Let us make it a day to celebrate the successes of women all over the world. Let us make it a day to remind ourselves of the struggles that women had and still have to go through; to achieve, to break barriers and to prove themselves. Let us make it a day to remember; to remind us all, show how important we are, to ourselves, to our families, to our beloved ones, to our communities and to our countries."

Dr. Reem Osman graduated from Tishreen University of Medicine in Latakia, Syria, as an ophthalmologist. She received her Master's Degree in Business Administration from Wollongong University in Sydney along with becoming a certificate holder of management healthcare delivery from Harvard Business School.

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