Kadindostumarkalar.org / 'Another Company is Possible'

"We Continuously Renew Our Company and Ourselves by Embracing 'Another Company Is Possible'"

Ülfet Baykent Uysal, HR Director at Mey|Diageo

Ülfet Baykent Uysal, HR Director at Mey|Diageo, emphasizes that their aim is to create an environment aligned with the motto "Another Company Is Possible" by constantly renewing both the company and themselves. She states, "In this journey we embarked on, we have a talent management approach that involves employees and many tools to support this approach according to the needs."

As one of the largest organizations in the Turkish alcoholic beverage sector, Mey|Diageo's HR Director Ülfet Baykent Uysal highlights their dedication to ensuring that all HR practices are needs-focused. Baykent Uysal mentions that they listen to employees through various tools and platforms throughout the year, co-developing new practices together. She says, "At the heart of our journey marked by 'Another Company Is Possible' is a talent management approach involving employees and tools designed to support this approach according to needs."

Ülfet Baykent Uysal, who notes that one of their favorite mottos is "Another Company Is Possible," adds, "We constantly strive to renew our company and ourselves to create this environment together with all our colleagues. We are progressing steadily in this journey we started by saying 'Another Company Is Possible.' We aim to create an environment where our colleagues come to work happily every morning, take pride in the work they do with their team members, continuously develop themselves and their work, and enjoy being together."

Ülfet Baykent Uysal points out their goal of creating an agile working environment free from hierarchy, centered on justice, respect, and empathy. She elaborates that there are many projects within this scope, including ongoing coaching and development programs.

"Our coaching and development programs continue"

Mey|Diageo was established in 2004 following the privatization of Tekel's alcoholic beverages division and came under Diageo's umbrella in 2011, which operates commercially in around 180 countries and has regional offices in 80 countries. We are a company that engages in viticulture on our own land and holds a farming license. By combining the talents of our employees with the strength of our brands, and with more than 2,000 employees working with our distributors and sales teams, we see ourselves as a significant component in gastronomy, agriculture, and tourism both in Turkey and globally. We aim to build an ecosystem that offers international service, quality, and experience with a strong female representation and gender balance.

To achieve this, we implement a variety of effective HR practices. One of these is the "New Life Internship Program," which provides long-term internship opportunities for talents continuing their university education to gain real job experience and develop through projects and training. Last year, we launched our first leadership journey program called "You Are Leaderless." The program starts with an orientation at our London headquarters and is supported by a mentor in Turkey and a buddy who has completed similar programs in Europe.

To strengthen the skills of managers and leaders who take on team responsibilities, we offer coaching, development programs, and training. Last year, through the "Future Proof Leadership" assessment center for all our leaders, we identified areas to prepare them for the future. This year, we created a special program called "Elevate" for employees who have recently become team managers. Additionally, we provide regular support to our team managers to enhance their coaching and leadership skills. This year, we also started a new program with the LEGO team (extended leadership team) involving expert coaches.

"We strive to create an environment where our employees feel secure"

We organize workshops to further enhance the psychological safety environment, focusing on enabling employees to freely express their ideas and concerns and to feel the freedom to make mistakes. To encourage this, we have a platform called "I Have an Idea," where employees can share their ideas and suggestions on any company-related matters at any time.

Additionally, we have many initiatives focused on digitization and simplification. We manage almost all HR processes through Workday. Our robots, implemented with RPA, automate repetitive tasks, helping our employees focus on more meaningful work. To support our continuous learning approach and contribute to the individual and professional development of all employees, we have global training platforms such as My Learning Hub (MLH) and My Learning Hub Connect (MLHC). We also collaborate with leading Turkish firms to plan training that addresses both personal and team development needs based on strategic business priorities and needs.

"Our goal is to create teams that learn, develop, and thrive on their diversity"

"Our goal at Mey|Diageo is to create teams that are happy, feel psychologically safe, can express themselves freely, perform at high levels, continuously learn, develop, and thrive on their diversity in a working environment with high psychological safety. To achieve this, one of the most important approaches we will adopt as a company is to create a culture where development is owned by each talent for themselves, and to meticulously prepare and monitor individual development plans for each employee. Another priority is to reach out to talents who question and can create value together. The development, compensation, and effective management of the career paths of talents joining our team will continue to be among our priorities."

"We recharge with Meeting-Free Afternoons and Refresh Days"

During and after the pandemic, our company was among the first to implement a new working arrangement with the necessary support for employees, through a comprehensive program. In this new arrangement, we introduced certain principles to help our employees better balance work and life, along with the physical workspace support they needed. We initiated "Meeting-Free Afternoons" on Wednesdays and "Refresh Days" for the entire company on one day each month. Employees mainly view Refresh Days as a time to focus on their individual work. Additionally, our "New State of Wellbeing" program continues to support employees' overall wellbeing, including mental, physical, financial, and social wellness. Through the Heltia application, a personal digital health advisor, employees receive online dietitian and physiotherapist support for their physical wellbeing. We also offer psychological support, childcare, health, parenting, and other expert advice for employees and their immediate family members through our Quality Life Support Line, maintaining confidentiality. Our global wellbeing platform Unmind is also among our offerings for online relaxation and mental wellbeing support. Furthermore, we have different reward systems to recognize and celebrate individual exceptional achievements and/or impact throughout the year.

About Ülfet Baykent Uysal

With 25 years in HR and business life, Ülfet Baykent Uysal graduated from Boğaziçi University with a degree in Economics and began her career as an HR Specialist at Unilever Turkey in 1999. Over the following 19 years, she held various HR roles across different geographies at Unilever, including working on training and compensation in the regional management team at the London headquarters. After returning to Turkey, she served as Talent Management & Marketing HR Manager before transferring to Unilever's France office in 2007 as Program and Change Manager for the Global HR Transformation Project. She returned to Unilever Turkey in 2009 as HR Director responsible for Supply Chain Industrial Relations across the region. After a brief career break in 2013, Ülfet Baykent Uysal took on the role of HR Director for Sales and Marketing for Turkey & NAMETRUB Region in 2014.

Before joining Mey|Diageo, Ülfet Baykent Uysal served as HR Director at Eczacıbaşı VitrA from 2018 to 2022. Since May 2022, she has been the HR Director at Mey|Diageo. Defining her life's purpose as "bringing out the sparkle in people's eyes," Baykent Uysal is also a Gestalt coach, BÜMED supporter, and works for the Sales Network Community.

"Our Employee Engagement Index is 92%"

We continuously strive to understand and improve our culture, just as we do in every area of our business. Through annual or ad-hoc surveys and culture-specific measurements, we aim to understand whether the culture we define aligns with the world we experience and to improve it with our employees. In recent culture surveys conducted with Spencer Stuart, the prominent themes that define us were "result orientation," "caring for each other," "fun," and "learning." The prominence of result orientation and caring for each other indicates that we are taking the right steps in our journey of "Another Company Is Possible." Additionally, our recent survey revealed an employee engagement index of 92% and an inclusion and diversity index of 86%. In recent years, our results have consistently been above global averages and industry standards. However, driven by our belief that we can always do better, we continue working on areas for development identified through feedback.

We maintain constant communication with our employees using our internal communication channels. Through our monthly newsletters, we share updates, leadership and wellbeing resources, and training materials. Our HR business partners conduct meetings with new employees at 1, 2, and 6 months to address their questions and gather feedback. We also value sharing, transparent communication, and celebration. At the end of each quarter, we gather all company employees for the "Reunions" to provide information on the company's performance and share important projects from teams.

"We achieved the 2030 target 10 years ahead"

We support the strengthening of women's presence in social and economic life and their increased participation in the workforce, and we work towards achieving balanced representation in senior management. We view balanced representation of women at various levels and departments in our company primarily as a talent management agenda. The proportion of women in our leadership team is 56%, and we achieved Diageo's 2030 target of 50-50 gender balance in management positions 10 years ahead of schedule. The percentage of women among our total employees has reached 36%. In addition to company-wide practices like

our "Career Development Platform" and "Active Participation" programs, we have many initiatives for women's career advancement, such as projects focused on women's professional development, mentorship programs, career paths, and our Employee Resource Group (ERG) “Women Together.”