A job interview made her question the barriers women face at work so she built a platform to uncover them

A job interview made her question the barriers women face at work so she built a platform to uncover them A job interview left Khatija Aslam questioning the assumptions women face at work. It led her to launch Moxy, which gathers women’s workplace experiences to help companies better understand the barriers women face at work. Khatija Aslam was headhunted for a role in 2020 and felt the interview had gone extremely well. She was coming out of maternity leave with two kids under two and was “confidently transparent and candid up front” about it. Then came an email from the headhunter, who told Khatija she didn’t get the job. “She said, you have great experience, relevant industry knowledge and the right motivations for the role. However, the interviewer feels it may not be a great fit with your personal circumstances as it will require very long work hours, late nights and extensive travel,” Khatija recalled. “I was never asked if I had any travel constraints. It was simply assumed I couldn’t travel.” Khatija wondered if this was happening to other women too. She started researching and discovered the "leaky pipeline" – a phrase commonly used to describe how there’s a decrease in the number of women at every consecutive career stage. She pointed out that over 50 per cent of women drop off between mid to senior levels of their careers. “These are typically the years when caregiving responsibilities peak, whether you have ageing parents or children,” Khatija explained. “I also started to see a pattern where women were either pushing themselves to the limit to prove that they could do it all, sacrificing precious time with young children to keep their careers alive, or they were simply leaving the workforce.” Khatija eventually landed a job in innovation marketing at a New Zealand-based fresh food company. She took a year’s sabbatical in 2022, then returned in a job-sharing role, working two-and-a-half days a week. During her sabbatical, she went deeper into her research to find out what it would take to “keep women’s careers alive and thriving – and not just surviving – while raising a family”. “It became more and more evident to me that solving the issue of women dropping out of the workforce requires systemic change,” Khatija told CNA Women. “This involves building awareness of gender bias and putting the right structures in place within organisations, and governments to a certain extent, to ensure women can grow, progress and thrive at every stage of their career,” the 37-year-old said. CAPTURING THE VOICES OF WORKING WOMEN In 2023, Khatija founded Moxy, a platform that captures the voices of working women in Asia and raises awareness of the real challenges they face in the workplace. Moxy collects data in two ways. The first data pillar is Moxy Movement, where women anonymously share their honest, unfiltered experiences about equality at work and flexibility. This is done through the website’s Insights page and is open to women of any age, from anywhere in the world, working at any level, in any industry. To date, insights have come from almost 1,000 women across 168 companies; women from Singapore make up 74 per cent of the data. The data is aggregated and published on Moxy’s public dashboard to surface patterns and signal where the gaps are. The second data pillar is Moxy TableInsights, a proprietary diagnostic tool used when companies partner with them, which captures their employees’ experiences. Moxy has worked with around 20 companies, spanning financial services, asset management, insurance, consumer goods and sports. Small groups of female employees share stories in their own words, respond to scenarios that resonate with them and identify where they think change is most needed. For example, a single mum of two young kids shared that she can’t go to dinners or weekend events. At a recent conference, she had dinner with 16 men and, afterwards, they all went out and became best friends, while she had to go home to her kids. “No one’s excluding me – it’s just the reality of the situation,” she said. Another working mum revealed that whenever she brings up a new opportunity for a secondment, people ask her: “What about your child?” She felt like she’s being judged as a mother and not as an employee. It became more and more evident to me that solving the issue of women dropping out of the workforce requires systemic change. The data is anonymised and presented at an aggregated level so it cannot be traced back to anyone. Moxy then analyses the patterns, investigates common themes, identifies the enablers and blockers, and layers all this data with a follow-up quantitative survey. The same participants are asked questions about career progression, leadership support, equal voice in meetings, flexibility and benefits. “The company receives a collective report… and we share where the gaps are and the interventions they can execute in the short and long term,” said Khatija. In one global consumer goods company, said Khatija, one of the clearest findings was that women had ambition and appetite for growth, but the systems to support that growth – mentorship, sponsorship, access to opportunities – were informal and inconsistent. According to Khatija, based on Moxy’s recommendations, the company plans to offer structured sessions for women on how to ask for sponsorship, equipping them with the language, confidence and frameworks to advocate for themselves. They are also rolling out inclusive leadership training for their managers, equipping leaders with the skills to actively sponsor and advocate for the women on their teams. EXPLORING DIFFICULT SCENARIOS THROUGH STORYTELLING Companies can also invite Moxy to host a TableTalk session, a collaborative game played in groups of eight to 10. Each table gets a female character card, whose life unfolds through a series of positive and negative events. The goal as a team is to build the best story possible for her, Khatija explained. Over 1,000 people across organisations have played the game, said Khatija. She worked with a behavioural psychologist and game designer to design Moxy TableTalk and TableInsights. “THERE’S A MASSIVE SUPPLY-DEMAND MISMATCH” Now a mum to three girls aged 18 months, six and eight years, Khatija works two-and-a-half days a week with the fresh food company and on Moxy the rest of the time. Job sharing is something she’s keen to see more of. This is an arrangement where two or more part-time employees share the responsibilities of one full-time employee, divided by function, time, geography or workload. “Moxy’s data shows that four in 10 working women would prefer part-time work if they had the choice, yet the supply is almost non-existent in Singapore – fewer than three per cent of companies offer job-share arrangements,” she said. “That’s a culture problem – there’s a massive supply-demand mismatch.” She’d also like to see promotion processes made transparent and outcome-based – Moxy’s data shows that only one in five women believes the promotion process in their organisation is fair, transparent and unbiased. Finally, there’s allyship, from male and female team leaders who are self-aware and unbiased. “We often focus the inclusion conversation on what happens at the top – the board, the CEO, the diversity and inclusion strategy,” Khatija said. “And while those are important for systemic change, the lived experience of most women is shaped by the person sitting directly above them. “Having middle management as allies affects how your flexible work request gets processed; it won’t even make it to the right people if your team leader has some preconceived perceptions about what you can or can’t handle,” she added. Pakistani by origin, Khatija was born in Malaysia and moved to Singapore around 20 years ago to study product design at the National University of Singapore. She’s been living here since and is now a Singapore citizen. Khatija revealed women have found the simple act of providing feedback “incredibly empowering”. And she’s most proud when these insights translate to real action. “Companies need to look deep into what’s going on internally; look for the data and understand why women are leaving. They should do it not as a checkbox exercise but because they genuinely want to retain 50 per cent of their pipeline.” CNA Women is a section on CNA Lifestyle that seeks to inform, empower and inspire the modern woman. If you have women-related news, issues and ideas to share with us, email CNAWomen [at] mediacorp.com.sg.