Bewsys is Promoting Gender Inclusive Workplaces and Programs Across Africa

With women representing more than half of the population in Africa, Better World Systems (Bewsys) made a company-wide commitment towards consciously pursuing gender inclusion and equality in order to eliminate gender stereotypes in the tech space.

“We believe that to be true to our sustainability commitment to digital innovation and inclusion in Africa, women should be prioritized among our stakeholders, from employees, to customers, and suppliers” says Robert Okine, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Bewsys.

The company is doing this by promoting gender-sensitive career development programs and policies for equal opportunities and working conditions. 

Okine prioritized awareness and operational alignment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) within Bewsys through mandatory and targeted education across functions and seniority levels. In 2019, the company set up a team to engage with the United Nations Global Compact to enhance initiatives and processes of measuring the company’s SDG targets. 

Sandra Selby-Annor, Bewsys’ Human Resources Manager acknowledges the benefits of the UN Global Compact to their progress. 

“The UN Global Compact played a fundamental role towards the success of our vision. Through the SDG Ambition Accelerator and Target Gender Equality program we gained more insights on how to improve gender equality. Also, the lessons learned from resources, programs, and webinars hosted by the UN Global Compact guided us in establishing high-level corporate leadership for gender equality.” she said.

By joining the UN Global Compact, Bewsys’ gender equality commitment, and initiatives became more driven by global benchmarks that were very relevant to its industry and business model. Tools like the SDG Action Manager guided the team in understanding the company’s initial baseline under key gender equality metrics such as Gender Pay Equality, Leadership Representation, Leave, Reproductive Healthcare, Living Wage, Discrimination, Grievances Reporting Mechanisms, and Gender Equality in Professional Development.

Additionally, the Women Empowerment Principles (WEPs) served as a guiding framework to determine and continuously track progress in core areas such as leadership, policies, internal operations, advocacy, value chain activities, products, and services.

Bewsys has 64% company-wide women representation while 50% of Bewsys’ management team are women.

As an Information Technology (IT) company, Bewsys recognized the low female representation in their core software engineering department due to inherent and systemic gender inequalities that exist in the field. This also affected women’s earning power because those employed in core services such as software engineering had a higher income on average than those in support services.

The company became more intentional in its hiring processes to increase the number of female engineers. To address this gap, Bewsys’ internships and entry level recruitment started prioritizing the recruitment of women. This allowed the company to provide on-the-job training to bridge the gaps in representation that are attributed to technical skills. To further create pathways for women to apply, the company adopted remote and flexible working policies for its engineering department in 2019 and has since expanded the policy to all departments in 2020.

As a result of these interventions, Bewsys is challenging the status quo of what a tech company looks like. The company has 64% company-wide women representation with 30% being software engineers and less than 5% turnover rate by women. Additionally, 50% of its management team are women. These are major milestones for the company as they exceed the global average statistics of 24% women representation and 45% turnover rate by women in the tech industry.”

Additionally, based on a proposal by the company’s team who were a part of the UN Global Compact SDG Ambition Accelerator program, the Human Resources department oversaw an overhaul of the company’s compensation system. This enabled a transition from static wage reviews to periodical, dynamic wage setters for the entire workforce.

“At Better World Systems, our big idea is to have a world free from inequality. In an industry that is considered predominantly male, I am very proud to be leading an organization that is very gender inclusive,” notes Okine.

Okine is now one of 10 business leaders selected by the United Nations Global Compact as SDG Pioneers in 2021. As an SDG Pioneer for Digital Innovation & Inclusion, Okine champions sustainability in the private sector and mobilizes companies to be a force for good. 

His company, Bewsys, creates and delivers custom software solutions, data collection and information management systems to advance sustainable development in humanitarian projects, government agencies and private organizations. Okine decided that all the company’s projects would be focused upon advancing the Sustainable Development Goals, with a special focus on SDG 5 – Gender Equality, SDG 8 - Decent work and Economic Growth, and SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities.

The projects have included social protection digital solutions that expanded social, humanitarian, and economic relief for more than two million women and children in the African countries of Lesotho, Ghana and the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

Bewsys has also developed unique solutions incorporating social protection, good governance, monitoring and compliance, agriculture, and education in 61 developing countries with limited data infrastructure in Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Oceania. 

The company’s projects focus on developing countries where information and data management systems need significant innovation to enhance the SDGs’ progress. By using technology as a transformative tool, they are supporting inspired people who share their mission of leaving no one behind. 

Okine believes that organizations should prioritize gender equality because excellence does not distinguish between genders. In promoting gender equality, organizations can recognize and benefit from the best talent and eventually increase business performance.

“If an organization does not know where to begin its sustainability journey, advancing gender equality is one of the fastest and surest ways to impact all the 17 sustainable goals because women are disproportionately affected by each goal. For example, gender pay equality raises the living standards of women to access quality education, reproductive healthcare, clean energy, food security, and financial independence to reduce the risk of gender-based violence” he notes.

Tolu Lacroix, Executive Director for the UN Global Compact Network Ghana, acknowledges the contribution of Bewsys in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals, especially SDG 5 - Gender Equality, in Ghana and on the African continent. 

“We celebrate Bewsys’ participation in the empowerment of women, especially women and girls in science and technology, which is a critical need in Ghana and Africa as a whole,” he says. 

“The UN Global Compact Network Ghana continues to encourage businesses to commit to the Ten Principles. With various programs, resources, and tools, especially our Target Gender Equality Accelerator, we are supporting businesses like Bewsys to plan, deliver, measure, report and uphold their commitment to gender equality in the workplace, marketplace, and community and to the SDGs in general,” Lacroix noted.