Women’s Day: Nestle moves for gender balancing

Nestle has launched an ambitious Gender Balance Acceleration Plan “From Aspiration to Action” as part of its activities to highlight International Women’s Day 2019.

The world’s largest food and beverage company believes that a gender balanced workforce makes business sense as it helps to boost innovation and performance, which as a result, better serves the needs of its consumers.

To close the current gender gap, the Technical and Supply Chain Management departments are looking to recruit a majority of women as graduate trainees, and include at least one female candidate in the final interview stage. Efforts are also being made to increase the number of women working in factories across the region.

Nestlé’s Global Chief Executive Officer, Mark Schneider announced the company’s acceleration plan to make gender balance a priority, based on three pillars: bold leadership, an empowering culture and a set of enabling practices.

The firm aims in the Central and West Africa Region (CWAR), to bring the Gender Balance Acceleration Plan to life through its multi-pronged initiatives, such as trainings to raise awareness on gender biases, career development and mentoring programmes for women, gender-sensitive succession planning, offering breastfeeding rooms and nurseries at work, as well as the implementation of its Maternity Protection Policy.

Total Performance Management Manager for Technical at Nestlé CWAR, Bunmi Etty-Mfon, who has led factory efficiency for over eight years to deliver safe, quality products in Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire, has encouraged and experienced this herself.

She said: “When there’s a good mixture of men and women, team-building activities tend to be more balanced, helping to develop greater empathy among individuals and teams. Diversity stimulates greater effort from everyone, leading to improved decision-making.

“Also, as the majority of consumers in our region are women, it gives us great perspective to lead in innovation,” she said.

Meanwhile, Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) has recognized the efforts of its women workforce in ensuring livable environment for visitors and residents of Lagos.

LAWMA’s Public Relations Officer, Mr Obinna Onyenali, in a statement to celebrate Women’s Day, said, “our efforts towards achieving a cleaner and healthier environment would not have been possible without the diligence of our lady-sweepers, who work assiduously day and night in making sure every nook and cranny of the State is kept clean.

According to him, LAWMA realises the important roles these heroines of the environment play in building the Lagos of our dreams. So we celebrate them today.
“Today we join our counterparts across the globe to mark this year’s International Women’s Day, a day set aside to celebrate the importance of women in society”, the statement added.