Why is equity, diversity and inclusion important for businesses?
A total of 9 out of 10 Bangladeshi households use one of our products, with most of them being women, consumers or shoppers.
As a responsible business we need to have a fair representation of people among us to understand their needs better.
For example, we operate in beauty and well-being, personal care, home care, and nutrition categories where majority of our consumers are women, from a product insight, consumer centricity and relatability -- it is beneficial for our business when we have gender balance in our team, and we start representing our consumer base better in all our conversations.
Driving ED&I values help businesses to enhance productivity, innovation, collaboration, safety, and financial returns.
I can further back it up with data from the International Labour Organization (ILO) -- which reported that companies with more inclusive business cultures and policies see a 59% increase in innovation and a 37% better assessment of consumer interest and demand.
What is the current ED&I situation at Unilever Bangladesh?
We see ED&I as a journey which started with gender balance.
We ended 2022 with 44% females at managerial level, which was less than 10% even in 2016.
We have a bold vision of achieving a 50:50 gender balance by 2025.
Our gender balance ratio at the managerial level is one of the highest across all industries in Bangladesh.
We are also an employer that is now driving inclusion beyond gender and welcoming other forms of diversity like Transgender and People with Disabilities (PwD).
We are trying to ensure that all organizational roles, from entry-level to management committee (the executive leadership team) are gender neutral.
For instance, we have mostly seen male sales representatives going shop to shop, taking orders, and working in a retail environment.
Many among us have the wrong perception that this will be difficult for women.
However, we have also seen development workers going village to village and door-to-door to work on issues like education, human rights, nutrition improvement and many more in the most challenging regions effectively and efficiently, so we were sure that women can work in a retail environment too.
Similarly, our Kalurghat factory (our largest manufacturing operation based in Chittagong Industrial Zone) is a legacy manufacturing site and even that needed more women on the shop floor or in engineering roles.
As we have seen most of the shop floor employees of the RMG sector, which is the largest export-earning sector of Bangladesh, are women, we also took the challenge to hire women for our shop floor, not only to work but also to supervise or lead a large number of blue-collar employees.
I have seen the positive results of these proactive approaches to strengthening our frontline functions: Customer Development (Sales) and Supply Chain.
We have around 300 women in our Customer Development (Sales) function across Bangladesh and more than 160 women on our factory shop floor.
How do you ensure balanced representation from entry level to top management?
At the entry level, our trainee programs have a good female intake ratio.
We encourage our recruits, especially female recruits, to take the leap of faith, place them in diverse and challenging roles, and invest in them through training and mentoring programs.
We see talented women opting for less aspirational roles or even leaving their careers at a critical stage of life, and we lose talents.
To ensure everyone's career progress, we need to incorporate these insights into our strategy -- whether it's offering agile working, flexible leave options for both parents and promoting a culture of respect and dignity for all.
For example, to address the career break problem, we have taken an initiative titled "Stride" which provided women on career breaks with the option to return to the corporate sector.
I am also proud to share that for the very first time, the management committee at UBL is 50% gender balanced and these iconic female leaders have become the ‘Boardroom Inspiration', paving the way for future generations.
It was relatively easy to make our top management gender-balanced because of our structured process of building a pipeline of senior female leaders.
Currently one-third of our top 50 leaders are female, ensuring that the leadership pipeline is balanced and sustainable.
This is what we are calling the ‘Frontline to Boardroom' transformation.
Tell us about the women friendly work environment at Unilever Bangladesh.
We primarily invested in a cultural shift and psychological transformation throughout the organization.
First and foremost, our expert team in human resources helps every employee to unleash their purpose through a purpose workshop, a unique and signature program of Unilever.
Every line manager undergoes leadership training on empathetic leadership, gender stereotypes, and many more.
Also, each woman can find a mentor within the organization and get adequate support through the different phases of their life and career.
We introduced night shift operations for females in factories with proper safety, security, and enablers to ensure balance in the frontline -- a pioneering initiative in Unilever South Asia cluster.
We were also the leading company in Bangladesh to have female managers in all field-level roles.
To further increase female participation, we've identified 50+ sales zones across the nation that are considered to be safer and infrastructure-friendly for women.
To further facilitate female working outstation, we partnered with Bhumijo to map facilities across the country to ensure their healthy sanitation and menstrual hygiene.
We've also built 43 women-friendly WASH facilities to support the wellbeing of our female employees.
To support young parents to keep their babies safe, we have creche facilities in our corporate office and factory along with professional nanny support.
What is your thought on this year's International Women's Day theme of DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality?
This year's International Women's Day theme of 'DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality' is a timely and important one.
Historically, women have faced challenges and discrimination while entering to study STEM, and subsequently while entering the job market.
Even today, there is still a significant gender gap in access to technology, which prevents women from fully benefiting from its potential.
For many years, we have been working to recruit, train and upskill women in STEM-related roles within the organization.
For example, last year, over 33% of our team members in the Supply Chain and Research and Development (R&D) teams were women, and that number is expected to rise this year.
We visit university campuses to promote ‘future' skills in STEM.
Internally, we host leadership talks and 1-on-1 sessions with senior STEM leaders who mentor young and mid-level employees to excel in their fields.
We continue to invest in the capacity development of female factory staff.
What are the next steps Unilever is considering taking? How do you think these future initiatives will pave the way towards Inclusion and motivate others to follow?
We want to remain one of the top female-friendly organizations and enrich our direct and indirect employees with other forms of inclusion like People with Disabilities (PwD) and Transgender representation.
We are glad the government is also supporting such initiatives of the employers and we want to drive a deeper focus on Transgender &PwD inclusion, sensitization, and training.
