International Women’s Day Celebration

Dufry celebrated International Women’s Day (IWD) on 8th of March with a number of events across different locations, that served to recognise women for their achievements. With a number of informative meetings, Women@Dufry - the group created within our company to help talented and ambitious women to further their careers within Dufry - chose this special day to update staff on the achievements made to date and to discuss other initiatives the group is working on.

In the two years that Women@Dufry has been running, Dufry has made significant inroads in the areas of career progression and talent management and in updating Dufry's internal policies to ensure zero discrimination amongst our staff – with the recent EQUAL-SALARY certification obtained in Switzerland as a tangible achievement.

But more importantly, the work of Women@Dufry is enabling the company to understand and recognize the life challenges that everyone, both male and female, face and to ensure we put in place the necessary resources to identify the issues and how to address them.

The work of Women@Dufry is fully supported by the highest bodies within Dufry – it has the full support of Dufry´s CEO and the Board of Directors, whose female members joined the International Women celebrations with a video message that was shared with all staff in all locations around the world. Back to the IWD cele­brations, several activities were held. In Kenya, red roses were given to our female staff members and customers as a way of recognizing the day; In London, staff in our Bedfont Lakes office could nominate 40 women in our business who inspired them and who they felt deserved some recognition. Roundtables, presentations and workshops were also organized in many other locations, including the US, Switzerland, Canada, Spain, Bulgaria, Jordan, the UK, Korea and Hong Kong, with a big event carried out in the new division offices.

With all these activities – and several others not mentioned here – Dufry joined many organizations across the world which, with the hashtag #BalanceForBetter, help foster the movement of society towards achieving a more gender-balanced world.

Achieving gender balance, however, is a task that doesn't end on International Women’s Day. It’s a daily challenge where each of us has a role to play – at work, at home, at school. Days like International Women Day, however, serve to raise awareness and celebrate the progress made. The work continues and we hope to share more news shortly!