Inclusion and Diversity Policies of Institutions: We Are Stronger Together

The Women Leadership Platform (KLP), we came together for the  “Being Side by Side in Inclusion and Diversity Policies of Institutions: We Are Stronger Together” roundtable discussion on December 24, 2020.

The way to gender equality and inclusiveness is through questioning, discussing, and transforming stereotyped masculine roles in minds as well as traditionally coded female roles. How are these molds breaking? What are the good practices of institutions?

Our panel started with our first session "We Are Stronger Together: Good Practices From The Ecosystem" moderated by Kerem Gök (UPS Turkey, Human Resources Manager). He said that the women leadership development, which we have realized by bringing together different departments in UPS and talking about what each group has done for the cause, gave great results in both employee development and customer communication.

One of our panelists, Emre Tamer (Peryön, Secretary-General), talked about the good practices on how women come together within the framework of the equality policies of different social groups. Whenever there is a transition from trading to entrepreneurship, we see that women are more involved in whichever sectors require creative investment rather than patronage. As the sector becomes a more intellectual and high-content sector, the field of competition and merit develops, more women are included, and more women become involved in NGOs related to the sector.

The "Together at Work" project, carried out by Peryön, talks about what companies are doing to raise awareness of both women and men on gender equality and organizes training seminars. He said that Peryön gave one-on-one mentoring to 40 people who attended these pieces of training and contributed to their development in their companies. Take a look here.

One of our panelists, Ali Mert Karaköy (YANINDAYIZ Derneği, Education and Project Development Specialist) talked about what they are doing as YANINDAYIZ. The aim of this NGO, founded by 40 founding men, is to ensure gender equality with the active participation of men.

If we look at the work done; 

• The Barbershop Conversations in Anatolia project is an interactive conversation where members talk about gender equality concepts in front of a barbershop décor.
• Time Travel with Nur Ger is an interactive conversation in which Mrs. Ger explains the concept of gender equality in the historical process.
• What’s Your Score? game is an online quiz to educate people on how close and distant they are to gender equality. Play now: What’s Your Score? 
• The Gender Equality Index is a project at the district level in Turkey, comparing and mapping out a report of the development of an index-based model of gender equality. Take a look at the Index Results here.

With the completion of the first session, the participants were divided into rooms and answered the question: What goals do you have as an institution in 2021 in terms of diversity?” 

After returning from the chambers, our moderator Kerem Gök said “We are looking for ways to employ more women in the logistics sector. We aim to become the leader of the sector by increasing awareness on this issue.”

Our panel continued with the second session “We Are Strong Together: Good Practices from Institutions”.

Kerim Beydağı (bp/Castrol, Global Marketing and Pricing Project Manager), spoke about bp WIN Turkey. The adaptation of Global bp WIN, bp WIN Turkey was established in 2017. There are participants from all business lines.

In 2018, bp/Castrol collaborated with TurkishWIN at the Young Women Career Summit.

“In 2019, we went to every office and sat with everyone from top managers to blue-collar employees and talked about how we, men, can contribute to the development of women and gender equality, what we need to do. We collaborated with the We Are With You Association in 2020 for this cause. Because men do want to be a part of this change, but they don't know where to start. With this initiative, our female-male participation in gender equality work within the company has become quite equal.” - Kerim Beydağı

One of our panelists, Murat Yüksel (GittiGidiyor, Employee Experience Director), stated that they are actively trying to include all stakeholders, not just NGOs, in their Women Initiative Network. The goal of their diverse groups is to raise awareness, contribute to employment, and interact with communities.

“For us, diversity means inviting everyone to a ball in a big castle. But the invitation is not enough, it is necessary to include those you invited and ask them to the dance. We see diversity and inclusion as part of our DNA. Gender equality is an issue that concerns not only women but the whole society. It should be something for women but it should include men and all other stakeholders as well. We realized that if you don't grasp the concept of gender equality, it won't be solved.” - Murat Yüksel

Then Mr. Yüksel talked about the Parenting Manifesto published by GittiGidiyor. The manifesto states that no one will be off their job, they will not be assigned to a different position, if they want, they can take the pieces of training they want as long as they are on leave, or they can get information about their job periodically when on parental leave. “We know how difficult parenting is, and we established a system of psychological support and buddy system for support.”  - Murat Yüksel

In addition to the Parenting Manifesto, GittiGidiyor has also published a domestic violence policy and started a mentoring program between men and women.

Our panelist, Kemal Özel (Microsoft Turkey, Human Resources Director), said that they have increased awareness by supporting inclusion issues with discussions in an interactive environment. They aim to make the issue of inclusiveness not a human resources issue, but an issue that everyone is involved in.

“Diversity and inclusion is everyone's business, not just management and human resources’. Whatever we can do in our current role, we need to help the company move forward.” - Kemal Özel

Microsoft Turkey:

• Invited a group of educators, 50% women and 50% men, to Istanbul from Turkish Middle Eastern and African countries and gave training on Diversity & Inclusion.
• They started a project called Fameka Al to enable women to master many more subjects, to increase their technical literacy, and to raise them to become educators.

Our “Being Side by Side in Inclusion and Diversity Policies of Institutions: We Are Stronger Together” discussion ended with closing remarks from the KLP partners.

The 2021 KLP Summit will be held on 17-18 February 2021. We invite all diversity and inclusion managers and specialists to attend. For more information visit www.kadinliderlikplatformu.org or email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.