#LoveBegingsWithLanguage movement won Borusan a Stevie Award

Borusan received an award from one of the most respected international business awards organizations, the Stevie Awards, with its “Love Begins With Language” Campaign. Borusan’s campaign won the Bronze Stevie Award in the category of Social Media, branch of Communications Campaign.

The “Love Begins with Language” campaign, carried out by Borusan to support gender equality and to fight against discrimination in its Group companies, achieved a significant international success. This year, marking the 14th year of the Stevie Awards (International Business Awards), the campaign won the “Bronze Stevie Award” under the category of Social Media and branch of Communications Campaign.

Stevie Awards is considered to be one of the prominent business awards organizations in the world. In 2017, 3,900 nominees from more than 60 countries and regions competed for the awards. A total of 12 juries consisting of more than 200 senior executives of the business world chose the winners. The winners will receive their awards with a ceremony in the Spanish city of Barcelona on October 21st 2017.

An Influential Campaign: “Love Begins With Language”

A social equality platform titled “Equal Borusan” was established as part of the intensive studies carried out within the Borusan organization to create solutions for eliminating discriminatory language and behaviors in work place. Equal Borusan Platform published a “Guideline to Avoid Discriminatory Language and Behaviors in the Work Place” under the counseling of the Social Gender and Women Research Center of Kadir Has University.

The guideline included expressions and behaviors; particularly gender-focused discriminatory expressions and behaviors that are commonly used in everyday business life. Gender discriminatory expressions in workplace such as “like a man, smart like a man, lady manager, woman’s job, man’s job” and condescending expressions regarding age and generation differences such as “dinosaur, old-fashioned, newbie, new born, Y-generation” were included in the guideline along with their non-discriminatory equivalents. These expressions were also made visible in Borusan offices and working environments via specially designed posters.

Thus, expressions were brought to attention that challenge a loving environment and are usually used without any awareness of their consequences. Along with the guideline, a video titled “Love Begins With Language” in which Borusan employees took part was released for both public and Borusan member viewing on February 14th Valentine’s Day, and was accessed by 4,530,000 people.