Giving Compass' Take:

• Seema Jalan explains that Hela is empowering female workers by providing child and health care to create better results for the company, the women, the community, and the world. 

• How can other companies be convinced to follow this model? Is the support detailed here sufficient? 

• Read about three reasons to boost women's work. 

Every day, Christine drops her children off at her employer-sponsored daycare and goes to her job as an employee relations assistant, popping over to check on her children during breaks.

Here at her workplace, the 36-year-old mother of two enjoys employee benefits that too many working women do not — access to essential health services like contraception, cervical cancer screening, counseling, and even clean, potable water to bring home to her family.

Dominic McVey, a Group Board Director at Hela, explains Hela’s commitment to women workers, saying, “Hela understands that a successful workforce requires a healthy workforce. This is why we are expanding our investment in health and empowerment for our women workers. People are our business; without our people, we don’t have a business. Only when women workers have access to reproductive health care, education and training can they achieve their potential, and can we succeed as a business.”

This kind of “triple bottom line” approach to business — one in which social and environmental impact is prioritized alongside financial gain — doesn’t just stand to boost productivity and economies alike. The world needs forward-thinking companies to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, the ambitious international agenda unanimously adopted by UN member states to eliminate global plagues like poverty, hunger and inequality by 2030.

“There is a lot of potential within us,” Christine says of her female colleagues at Hela and women workers around the world. “We are the people who run the economy. There is nothing a woman can’t do now.”

As for her own future? Christine knows exactly where she wants to go. She wants to be an HR manager and help other employees realize their potential in the workplace:

Read the full article about empowering female workers by Seema Jalan at United Nations Foundation.