22nd August, Colombo, Sri Lanka: MAS Holdings (MAS) has been selected as a finalist for the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion category at the 13th Reuters Events: Responsible Business Awards 2022 – the world’s leading celebration of responsible business excellence.
Group Human Resources Director of MAS Holdings, Dinali Peiris, stated, “We are thrilled to be shortlisted in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion category for the work that we are doing to create a diverse and inclusive organisation for our 118,000 employees across 17 countries. The diversity of our employees’ perspectives, experiences and skill sets has been instrumental in defining MAS’ offering to our customers, our communities, and all our stakeholders, and we continue to learn from them every day.”
MAS is committed to building a diverse workplace with equal opportunities, focusing on having 30% women in management by 2025, and fostering inclusion with a special emphasis on persons with disabilities.
Through its flagship women’s empowerment program, Women Go Beyond (WGB), MAS has provided 3.7 million opportunities for women in areas such as career advancement, women’s health and reproductive rights, preventing gender-based violence, providing childcare support, mentorship and sponsorship for women, and leadership and skills development. MAS’ efforts to create gender equality include flexible work arrangements, recruitment policies, gender-sensitive communication, reducing unconscious biases and setting goals and strategies to hold leaders accountable to improve female representation in management.
Employing a rights-based approach in the inclusion of persons with disabilities, MAS proudly grows with over 380 colleagues with disabilities ranging from vision, speech, hearing, cognitive and physical impairments employed within the business. Through the Supported Employment model, MAS provides the 4E framework of Employ, Engage, Enable, Empower, to help employees with disabilities integrate into the organisation. MAS goes a step further to extend its work with persons with disabilities to the products they make, with a focus on creating adaptive apparel solutions for their customers, believing that clothes should be designed for everybody and every body.
The Reuters Events Responsible Business Awards are the world’s leading Awards celebrating leadership in sustainable business. It is more than acknowledging excellent sustainability strategies. The Responsible Business Awards recognise those that are truly having an impact on business, society, and the environment – delivering a new blueprint for business in the 21st century.
For the past 13 years, the Reuters Events Responsible Business Awards have served as the benchmark for businesses from across the globe that are looking to showcase real leadership against their international peers.
“It has been inspiring to see the quality and number of entries we’ve received for this year’s Awards. There’s been a lot of new faces joining us in 2022, showing the progress we as an industry are making towards a more sustainable future. There are some truly amazing initiatives and innovations across the globe that are driving new responsible ways of doing business. We look forward to celebrating their successes back in person at our ceremony in London in October.” Ed Long, Head of Sustainable Business Events.
Finalists for the Diversity, Inclusion and Equity category, including a brief overview of their leading strategies can be found here: https://events.reutersevents.com/sustainable-business/responsible-business-awards/finalists