Jakarta, IDN Times -- To celebrate International Women's Day 2025, UNIQLO Indonesia and Indonesia Business Coalition for Women Empowerment (IBCWE) organized a set of activities aimed at ensuring equality and inclusivity in workplaces. With a global theme “For All Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment,” it brought to attention an exclusive working environment and empowering women to be future leaders.
Organized on Tuesday (March 25, 2025), at the office of UNIQLO Indonesia, a series of engaging discussions were held between speakers representing different industry exposure. A part of its campaign, UNIQLO also introduced an in-company mentoring program for women employees. The program was meant to support them in their career and make workspaces more equal by ensuring equal access to leadership roles for women.
A number of distinguished speakers were involved in the activity such as Irma Yunita (Director of Corporate Affairs, UNIQLO Indonesia), Kuswahyu Adhi (AVP of Finance Control, Amartha Mikro Fintek), and Wahyu Radita (Head of Corporate Communications, Sustainability, DEI Culture and Engagement at Godrej Consumer Products Limited Indonesia). They shared their perspectives on ongoing issues such as women being less represented in strategic functions in workplaces and shed light on the need to assist women in maintaining a balance in professional and personal life.
An Inclusive and Equal Workplace
On a mission to build a workplace environment that is both equal and inclusive for all employees and women in particular, UNIQLO has introduced a number of policies such as work arrangements that are flexible, performance-based assessments, and paternity and childcare leaves. This ensures people have an equal opportunity to build a future in their profession without any hurdles.
“Our employees are mostly women around 60 percent even at managerial levels. That is a reflection of Indonesia’s population and it means women are our backbones,” said Irma Yunita, Director of Corporate Affairs at UNIQLO Indonesia. “We have launched many initiatives and borrowed best practices elsewhere. That’s part of our process to improve to make a better environment.”
To take it forward, UNIQLO has also instituted a Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Committee along with initiatives aimed at ensuring inclusivity. One such initiative is giving childcare allowances to employees with children below five years old especially when work is heavy.
Overcoming Challenges to Women’s Leadership
Even with good policies in place, UNIQLO is aware of unconscious bias and glass ceiling constraints that prevent women from reaching leadership levels. That is why the company is committed to creating policies in addition to providing concrete support and promoting an organizational culture to help women progress.
“Men’s participation is also important in ensuring gender parity,” added Irma. “On performance-based assessments, an ethical code of conduct, and cross-functional collaboration, our diversity committee, human resources departments, our sustainability teams, and so on. Together we encourage more gender-inclusive practices.”
Empowering Women through Mentorship
On special occasion of International Women’s Day celebration, UNIQLO launched an in-company mentoring program to be run specially for their female employees. The program has three main topics to discuss: The Art of Managing Expectations, Work-Life Harmony, and The Power of Development.
During these sessions, employees are motivated to share experience, new ideas on development in their profession and build confidence. Facilitated by female managers in
UNIQLO who serve also as mentors, the small group discussions enable meaningful dialogue and practical assistance.
“Personal stories resonate deeper,” Irma explained. “Sharing real-life experience, women are able to relate to each other on a deeper level and embark on a process of growing together. Such discussions are powerful in this way because they are authentic.”
Joining forces with IBCWE to Empower More Women
To strengthen its commitment to this cause, UNIQLO partnered with IBCWE to organize a talk show entitled “Building Empowering Environments: Cultivating the Future Women Leaders.” The session featured speakers representing different sectors and discussing how to build open, equal, and inclusive workplaces.
This partnership supports both UNIQLO’s global purpose and the Human Rights Policy of Fast Retailing Group with a similar emphasis on equity and inclusion in work. With this collaboration, UNIQLO seeks to effect positive change inside and outside of the company.