The Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) is working with more companies for the implementation of a soft skills program seeking to empower women in the workplace.

“Soft skills development program aims to provide women with soft skills to enhance employability and productivity, allow them to balance multiple roles, and empower them to take more responsibilities and even leadership roles,” Jelermina Abigail Gorospe, ECOP Advocacy, Research, and Communications Manager, said in a webinar.

Gorospe said women, especially during the pandemic, have to juggle multiple roles between work and family.

“Although we had male employees and male managers joined the program, the focus really was to help women equip them with skills like creative thinking. We want to equip the women with negotiation skills so that they can negotiate for themselves…,” she added.

Gorospe said the soft skills development program, which targeted women employees during the pilot stage, is being implemented in partnership with the International Labor Organization (ILO).

“We are ready to open this publicly and to reach more companies,” she said. “We are hoping to reach more companies and more employees, especially women, so that we may be able to empower them to take more responsibilities, manage their roles, and probably climb the leadership ladder,” she said.

Aside from this program, Gorospe said ECOP is partnering with Philippine Women’s Economic Network (PhilWEN) for the ILO project on rebuilding better providing support for women entrepreneurs.

“We are providing capacity building programs on business continuity planning, business planning, financial planning, and how to safely return to work,” she said.

Gorospe said the ILO has other initiatives in addition to the capacity building module.

“With these activities, with these programs, and capacity building programs and enterprise level intervention, we are hoping to touch more lives, promote women economic empowerment, and women leadership,” she added.