Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment

Embracing equality, diversity and inclusion helps to reduce social and economic barriers, build a strong community, support minority groups in achieving their potential and raise awareness of disadvantaged and vulnerable groups in society.

Major projects and programs we implemented are as follows:

Beko 100 Women Dealers

Through the project implemented in 2019 in Turkey, Beko supports women’s entrepreneurship. It aims to increase women’s participation in the retailer ecosystem and economy by inviting them to become a Beko dealer. By boosting the share of women dealers at Beko from 4.8% to 25% by 2026, which is one of our Action Coalition targets, we are aiming to increase the number of women entrepreneurs in the retail sector. The Beko 100 Women Dealers project reached 57 women dealers with 64 stores by the end of 2021.

500 Women Technician

Increasing the share of women employees working in STEM areas at Arçelik is of our Action Coalition commitments. Through our 500 Women Technicians program, which was designed to enable women to gain new professional technical competencies, we aim to increase the proportion of women technicians working at Arçelik Authorized Services from 6.7% to 14% by 2026. This new talent transformation and employment project is open to internal and external applications, and 482 women technicians have been trained so far. The project was recognized in the “Women’s Empowerment” category at the Sustainable Business Awards, 2021.

To increase our impact and to align with our Action Coalitions commitments, we are planning increase the percentage of women technicians working at Arçelik Authorized Services from 6.7% to 14% by 2026.

Equal Dictionary

We promote gender equality by leveraging the power of technology. The Equal Dictionary keyboard is an application that we developed originally for Turkish speakers. In 2021, Urdu was added to the application. The keyboard warns the user when they use sexist expressions, words that belittle women or men, or discriminatory language, and offers alternative wording. In 2021, the mobile app was downloaded 26,155 times and the 11 most prevalent discriminatory words used in Turkish were detected 121,586 times.

Kızcode Training

We provide training in the areas of programming and coding to our employees’ daughters between the ages of 11 and 15.Participation of 434 girls in Kızcode program has been ensured since 2018. It is planned to maintain the program by updating its content in 2022, considering the technological advancements.

WE-INTECH

The “We-inTech” program, The ‘You are an Engineer, You are with Us’ in its old name, is designed to support the career development of women engineers (3rd and 4th grade of studenst) in R&D and innovation, ensuring their full and effective participation.

In 2021, 727 students from all over Turkey applied to participate in the program. A total of 58 students were selected from the top 19 universities as determined by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey’s Entrepreneurial and Innovative University Index. Three days of workshops included training, inspirational speeches, and discussions with senior management. To represent the dynamic and social structure of nextgeneration R&D, students had a chance to practice what they have learned in agile project management and design thinking concept development sessions. For three days, students studied within diverse teams and worked with mentors to generate ideas on the topic of "Life at Home". Four students were selected to be employed as interns at Arçelik under the Fresh Start summer internship program and 11 students were hired as Project engineers, project assistants and engineers.

As part of our Action Coalitions commitments, we aim to expand our “You are an Engineer, You are with us” project in three more countries (Romania, Pakistan, and South Africa) by 2026.