Beckers Vietnam paints a picture of a Zero Discrimination future
Beckers Vietnam is proactively working to break down the cultural barriers that women face in Vietnamese society to promote a more gender-balanced organization with reduced inequalities.
"Traditionally the society in Vietnam is quite patriarchal, which means that women typically have lower salaries and fewer opportunities in the workplace,” explains Danial Azfar Zow Bin Abdullah, General Operations Manager at Beckers Vietnam. “We have several ongoing social engagement projects that we develop and implement together with our team, and we chose discrimination as one of our focus areas in 2021."
UNAIDS Zero Discrimination Day, on 1 March 2021, offered colleagues an opportunity to reflect on two of Beckers’ Sustainability Goals in particular: Gender Equality, aimed at empowering girls and women and creating equal opportunities in recruitment; and Reducing Inequalities, which involves respecting and caring for employees and communities, wages and discrimination.
Zero Discrimination Day is a chance to mobilize action against unfair treatment of people based on race, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, disabilities and many other facets that make up the rich diversity of our workforce. In 2021, colleagues at Beckers Vietnam took up the call by holding a workshop to promote equality and empowerment for women and girls.
Almost all 74 Beckers colleagues on both sites in Ho Chi Minh City and Nghệ An got together to discuss the challenges that women and girls face in Vietnamese society, as well as the efforts made at Beckers Vietnam in recent years to achieve a more balanced ratio of male to female employees.
Those discussions were followed by a painting competition at both locations. Participants had 40 minutes to create a painting on the subject of empowering women and girls. Afterwards, the teams presented their creative works to the group and signed a commitment board, stating: “We, Beckers Vietnam, are committed to ZERO DISCRIMINATION in our workplace and outside of our workplace.”
“The workshop helped to raise awareness of the issues and highlighted what individuals could do to overcome their unconscious biases both in the workplace and in Vietnamese society in general.”
Danial Azfar Zow Bin Abdullah | General Operations Manager at Beckers Vietnam
Promoting change throughout the organization
“As well as raising awareness among all our employees, we are working to change the mindset of our managers,” says Abdullah. “By ensuring that our managers lead by example and are role models for other employees in terms of non-discrimination, we can promote cultural change throughout our organization.”
We have improved gender equality in our operations in Vietnam in recent years as we work gradually towards the Beckers 2030 Sustainability Goals to reduce inequalities. This includes the goal to employ 40 percent female employees for new positions. “Recruitment is key and we work actively to employ more female employees and managers,” says Abdullah. “We still have work to do in recruitment, but I am currently looking to recruit a female Production Manager and am investigating the potential to recruit a female forklift driver, for example.”
