As Vestel Group of Companies, we adopt the understanding of equality between men and women in all areas of life, and accordingly, we support all efforts to empower women in society, business and economic life. We believe that innovative ideas in the corporate sense can only sprout with the joint work of the minds and talents of individuals, and we strengthen our corporate policies with practices that will promote gender equality.
We see the United Nations Women's Empowerment Principles, which we are pleased to be a party to, as an indicator of our commitment to the empowerment of women so that they can take part in economic life in all sectors and at all levels. The Women's Empowerment Principles, created in partnership with the UN Global Compact and UN Women in 2010, include the following topics:
- Establishing senior corporate leadership for gender equality,
- Fair treatment of women and men at work, respect and support for human rights and non-discrimination,
- Ensuring the health, safety and well-being of all female and male employees
- Promoting education, vocational training and career development for women,
- Adoption of initiative development, supply chain and marketing practices that empower women,
- Promoting equality through social initiatives and advocacy,
- Measuring and publicly reporting developments to ensure gender equality.
Under the leadership of Zorlu Holding Board Member, Selen Zorlu Melik, the Gender Equality Committee was established; Vestel also moves forward in line with the strategies, thanks to the valuable work of volunteer employees and their close follow-up on the subject.
Active participation of women in corporate life has positive impacts on the productivity and financial performance of companies. In this respect, we encourage efforts to ensure gender equality throughout the Company, including recruitment practices. Under the guidance of Zorlu Holding’s Eşit Bi’Hayat (An Equal Life) Gender Equality Manifesto and its status as a signatory to the United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles, Vestel assumes responsibility for ensuring gender equality in society, in the electronics and household appliances industries, and among the employees of the Vestel Group of Companies at all levels.
IIn 2019, Vestel launched the Female Technician Training Project within the Vestel Service Academy, providing technician training to customer representatives working in authorized service centers and offering them the opportunity to work in after-sales technical support teams.
Vestel established the Gender Equality Group within Vestel in order to develop volunteering projects that raise awareness with the motto “An Equal Life is Possible for All”. In this context, with the Mutlu Bi’Anne (A Happy Mother) Project, companies of Zorlu Holding Group, including Vestel, which works to ensure that working mothers have more equal conditions in working life, published the Domestic Violence Prevention Policy. Relevant processes are being carried out in order to obtain the Equal Opportunity Model certificate of the Turkish Women Entrepreneurs Association (KAGIDER). In addition, as a result of the cooperation with KAGIDER, a mentoring program is also implemented, which aims to enable young women who have recently graduated from university or who have a maximum of 2 years of work experience to start their business life better equipped and to facilitate their job search processes. There are a total of 20 volunteer mentors in the project.
In line with our gender equality approach, Vestel published the “Eşit Bi’Hayat (An Equal Life) Dictionary” as a guide to avoiding sexist discourse patterns and idioms embedded in language. It brought together alternative discourses that can be used from an equal and inclusive perspective in the dictionary, which is accessible to all our stakeholders and can be accessed via the Smart Life 2030 website.
Vestel Elektronik Sanayi ve Ticaret AŞ - Gender Distribution of Employees on a Consolidated Basis (2022)
Vestel Beyaz Eşya Sanayi ve Ticaret AŞ - Gender Distribution of Employees (2022)
