Symrise helps to forge a gender equal world

In line with the #ChooseToChallenge theme of International Women’s Day, celebrated worldwide on 8 March, Symrise is playing its part in helping to forge a gender equal world. The global producer of inspiring fragrance, flavour, natural nutrition and cosmetic ingredients celebrates women’s achievements, raises awareness against bias and takes action for equality.  

Symrise sources, produces, manufactures and markets its products all over the world. Its expansive and international operations are reflected in the people employed by the company. Symrise thrives on the diverse ethnic, cultural, religious, gender and age backgrounds of its employees – “we want our products to be for all people, created by a diverse workforce,” the company says.

Standing for workplace gender equality

Achieving true diversity and equality as a company means having the systems in place to make its ambitions a reality. It is an ongoing journey for Symrise, which is proud of its progress to date. For example, the company’s 2020 target for 40% of its workforce to be female was already almost reached by the end of 2016 (38.3%).

With almost 10 665 employees serving roughly 160 countries and in doing business with other companies in other countries, with different cultures and customs, it’s vital that Symrise has a common basis from which to work. This is where the company’s Code of Conduct comes in: it is one of the most important elements of Symrise’s group-wide compliance programme and has been key to enabling the company to build its positive reputation with all the different people and businesses it works with.

In 2017, Symrise signed the Women’s Empowerment Principles, a joint initiative of the organisation UN Women and the United Nations Global Compact, which aims to raise awareness of the issue of promoting and empowering women in companies. With this move, Symrise sent (and continues to send) a clear message to the global organisation that it stands for gender equality in the workplace. Like Symrise, all businesses stand to benefit from greater equality for women.