International Women’s Day: Nestle Continues to Empower Women
Nestle is committed to enhancing gender balance in its workfoce and to empowering women across its value chain. This commitment was highlighted by the Managing Director of Nestle Nigeria, Mr. Mauricio Alarcon in his keynote speech during the International Women’s Day talk at the company’s headquarters.
The company’s efforts to drive gender balance and women empowerment ties in this year’s UN International Women’s Day theme ‘Women in Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030’, which focuses on rallying support to change the world of work into a more gender inclusive environment.
In 2016, Nestlé launched the Diversity and Inclusion Framework which encompasses all aspects of diversity. Gender balance remains the main focus of the company, but is complemented by other areas such as striving to create a cross-generational and multicultural environment.
This year as part of its framework, Nestlé Central and West Africa Region (CWAR) is driving the theme ‘Leading Togetherwomen and men which brings women and men together to discuss how Nestlé can accelerate its diversity and inclusion journey across all countries in the region which includes Nigeria.
Women empowerment conferences and workshops were organised across the region. In Nigeria, the team hosted a talk with three panellists: Funmi Victor-Okigbo (FVO), Chioma Omeruah (Chigurl) and Adefunke Adeyemi who inspired women to be intentional about their lives, get organised, learn to understand themselves, own their career aspirations and blend every area of their lives to create the life they desire.
The discussion built on Alarcon’s call on the women to be involved in creating
gender balanced environment in Nestlé Nigeria.
Over the years, Nestlé has put measures in place to address the most critical concerns of women in the workplace. To drive this in a more structured way, the
Nestlé CWAR Parental Polity which is based on the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Maternity Protection Convention and the global Nestlé Maternity Protection Policy was launched across the region in 2015.
The policy includes 14 weeks paid maternity leave with the right to extend maternity leave by up to six months, flexible working arrangements and a conducive work environment to breastfeed. Nestlé CWAR currently has four breastfeeding rooms available at its sites, including Nigeria for nursing mothers.
The work on driving gender balance and women empowerment goes beyond the direct employees. In collaboration with the Fair Labour Association (FLA), gender awareness trainings have been organised to open up more opportunities for women.