Diversity & Inclusion Matters, Everyday

Celebrations for the International Women’s Day and #WomensHistoryMonth just passed but all the important issues raised must powerfully accompany us over the next months. Celebrating Women’s Day and the history of women should in fact not only be the opportunity to reflect on where we are today in terms of women rights and gender inclusion, but it must represent a stimulus to carry on every day small and big actions to reach better conditions for all the women around the world, starting from the workplace.

At Whirlpool, we proudly celebrate this month in a continuous effort to create a more gender diverse and inclusive workforce. Working for a big multinational company operating in many different countries empowers all of us, providing significant opportunities that come with individual responsibilities. It’s not a coincidence that Diversity and Inclusion is one of our enduring values.

Whirlpool is itself a quite diverse organization, where many different backgrounds, cultures and generations gather every day. I have as well a very diverse background: I am a Turkish woman, I studied and worked in my home country but I also lived in London, Dubai and now Milan. These experiences helped me to realise the value diversity brings and the power of inclusion in my personal and professional journey. Diversity is the sum of all differences and is a given while how we deal with diversity to eliminate barriers to collaboration, trust and full team engagement is our choice.

As EMEA HR Director for Talent, Total Rewards, Diversity & Inclusion, my goal is in fact not only to achieve a good level of diversity at all levels of the organization but also to make sure that the culture of inclusion is deeply embedded in our company.

Recent data and statistics has shown how women still face discrimination in the workplace, from salary gap to the difficulty to reach top positions in companies. These discriminations have consequences on a personal as well as an economic point of view. In this regard, Whirlpool puts in place concrete initiatives to make important steps forward in tackling the issues related to gender discrimination.

Few weeks ago, Whirlpool Corporation CEO Marc Bitzer announced plans to become the newest member of the Catalyst® CEO Champions for Change, a global diversity and inclusion initiative that aims to advance more women into leadership positions. We also promote bottom-up initiatives, like the recently launched Whirlpool EMEA Women’s Network, a voluntary employee-led group that serves as a resource for colleagues by fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace.

We broaden our actions by collaborating with external partners: last year, Whirlpool signed the “Valore D” Manifesto for Women’s Empowerment, an agreement consisting of 9 points which define concrete tools to enhance female talent in the corporate world, with a special focus to promote women in STEM fields.

Closing the gender gap and breaking the glass ceiling that remains for many women in the workplace is not an easy matter. However, at Whirlpool we strongly believe that with a constant dialogue, commitment and very well defined strategy good results can be achieved. We hope to take the 2019 Women’s Day as an occasion to celebrate further results achieved during 2018. Because diversity & inclusion matters every day!

Seren Bayramoglu
HR Director — Talent Development, Total Rewards and Diversity&Inclusion, Whirlpool EMEA