Diversity, Equality, Inclusion

GENDER EQUALITY

At Zorlu Enerji, in line with Zorlu Group’s common strategy of Smart Life 2030, we see diversity and inclusion as one of the most fundamental needs for an innovative and creative business culture. Accordingly, we consider developing a working culture and environment that applies diversity and inclusion criteria among our top priorities.

We continue to move forward in line with our strategies thanks to the valuable work of our employees from Zorlu Enerji who voluntarily joined the Gender Equality Committee established under the leadership of Ms. Selen Zorlu Melik, a member of Zorlu Holding Board of Directors.

In all our practices, we take the Eşit Bi’ Hayat (An Equal Life) Gender Equality Manifesto as a guide within the framework of the Smart Life 2030 vision published by Zorlu Holding:

Ensuring gender equality, combating the prejudices brought about by the concept of sexism, strengthening the position of women in business life as well as providing employment to less advantaged employee groups and ensuring their sustainability in business life are the main topics of our work focused on equal opportunities.

We manage our approach to Gender Equality through three main areas of focus: discourse, work environment and collaborations. With the belief that language is the most effective tool that shapes consciousness, we use egalitarian expressions without gender discrimination in internal and external discourse. We offer an equal and fair working environment regardless of gender, age, language, race, ethnic origin, physical build, nationality, sexual orientation, political opinion, philosophical belief, religion and sect, without allowing any discrimination in working conditions in the work environment.

We organize trainings and webinars on Gender Equality to strengthen the awareness of our employees.

With our “Rotation at Work” program, which we created to support the advancement of women in business, we aim to ensure that our female employees gain new competencies and develop their leadership skills by giving them the opportunity to undertake different tasks through rotation.

With our Mentorship Program, which we also consider within the scope of Gender Equality and in the participation of which we pay regard to gender equality, a development program based on bilateral learning and volunteerism is implemented.

In order to inform our prospective employees, we include the principle of equal opportunity in our job postings and job application forms and evaluate incoming job applications in accordance with this principle. In addition, we also monitor the issue from the perspective of our employees in our questions pertaining to equal opportunity in our employee engagement surveys.

As part of our efforts to make Gender Equality a corporate culture, we set out with the motto “An Equal Life is Possible for Everyone”. We continue to work to implement new practices to make discourse and workplace conditions more egalitarian, and to cooperate with civil society, academia and the business world in this regard.

In this context, as Zorlu Enerji, we have signed the WEPs, a joint initiative of UN Women and UN Global Compact, which consists of principles that provide a roadmap for companies on how to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in the workplace and society.

We cooperate with many organizations including WING (Women In Geothermal Platform), TWRE (Turkish Women in Renewable Energy and Energy Sector Group), Kagider and EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development).

As part of these collaborations, TWRE’s 2020 International Women’s Day Special Program was hosted by Zorlu Enerji with nearly 100 participants. As Zorlu Enerji, we have supported the mentorship program launched for industry professionals with 6 female engineers. On 2021 World Women Engineers Day, TWRE participated in the “Women Engineers with Endless Energy” panel and provided guidance to women who want to work in this field.

We have shared the content of our Gender Equality Project, which we initiated within the scope of our cooperation with the EBRD and whose midterm appraisal was conducted in 2020, with BinYaprak, a sisterhood network where women who want to work and produce share their experiences and create opportunities for each other, at a panel held with various companies in the energy sector.

At Bizenerji events organized with Internal Communication to have more women in the supply chain, we share gifts from the hands of women with our colleagues in order to support regional women’s cooperatives every year on Women’s Day. 

We aim to increase the ratio of female employees to 40% by 2030 and support the 30% Club, which aims to increase the ratio of women in decision-making mechanisms, boards of directors and senior management of companies to 30%.

At Zorlu Enerji, we implement various programs to support working mothers. We offer Part-Time Work or Unpaid Leave options for employees to adapt to both their new role and working life after childbirth. In order to both support the work-motherhood life balance of employees who are on 6-month unpaid leave and meet the requirements of business life, a substitute employee is provided with a fixed-term employment contract for the duration of the leave period.

With our principle of Equal Opportunity, our employees who become mothers can continue their performance, backup and training processes from where they left off after returning to work life. In 2021, 9 of our 11 colleagues who went on maternity leave returned to work.

 Moreover, all of our colleagues who are new parents or preparing to become parents can participate in programs consisting of expert doulas and psychologists with the “Parenting School” in our Corporate Wellbeing Program “Together, We Are Good”.

Ratio of female employees in 2021:

Executive management: 18%

Supervisor and above: %25

White collar: 24%

Bloomberg Gender Equality Index