Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Cultivating an environment of inclusion and belonging is key to our values CARE, DARE and DELIVER
As outlined by our Code of Conduct, leadership expectations and our values, treating all of our employees equitably and with respect is key to successful leadership and ultimately to a sustainable business and a thriving society. Delivering on our 2030 Strategy requires continuously nurturing a working culture that is conducive to creativity and innovation. That, in turn, is enabled through the active promotion of diversity, inclusion and belonging. Our leadership model, our values and the work we carry out to develop our strategic capabilities all support this goal. At Huhtamaki, we are dedicated to providing a safe, engaging and high-performance culture and to attracting and retaining a workforce that represents the diversity of the markets we serve and operate in. We believe diverse teams fuel innovation. We invest in fostering an environment where everyone is safe both psychologically and physically and where diversity and inclusion are promoted through day-to-day behaviors which are reinforced by our policies and practices.
Ensuring transparency and standard ways of working is important in driving equitable treatment. We aim to attract and develop a workforce that reflects the places where we do business, and to nurture an inclusive workplace where everyone’s perspectives and ideas are respected and valued, where people are treated equitably and where everyone feels a sense of belonging. Our talented workforce is comprised of people from over 90 nationalities. The representation of different generations in the workforce is well balanced from early career professionals to those nearing retirement. At Huhtamaki, the representation of women in leadership roles exceeds that of the general workforce, in an industry that is not traditionally perceived as female oriented.
In 2022, we continued the implementation of our plans aimed at further increasing the diversity of our workforce and advancing our inclusive environment. We renewed our talent acquisition guidelines to ensure our recruitment processes and practices are fair and equitable, which includes posting all job openings both internally and externally. Our recruitment effort brought proportionally more women into the workforce than left us during the same timeframe. Going forward, we will continue this development work. Also in 2022, several of our global manufacturing sites successfully implemented targeted local initiatives to attract, engage and develop employees of underrepresented groups.
In 2023, we introduced guiding principles on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to safeguard the well-being and fair treatment of our employees and contractors at all of our sites globally. We also included inclusion index in our annual employee survey. The newly established inclusion index measures how our employees experience equal opportunity and inclusion in their workplace. With an initial score of 83%, the new index also exceeds the manufacturing norm.
Below are some examples of projects on our sites that aimed at creating equal opportunities:
I-WIN (Women Inclusive Network) is a program established by Huhtamaki India in 2022 to promote an inclusive work environment and to support women employees on their career development journey. The program includes awareness raising about diversity and inclusion, training sessions on topics such as unconscious bias, as well as professional development courses that support female employees in strengthening leadership and management competencies. The program also includes creating local policies and processes that ingrain diversity and inclusion in the day-to-day activities of the company.
Up until 2021 our site in Istanbul, Turkiye, did not have female employees working on the shopfloor and having only male workers was considered business as usual. The site had a broad female representation in leadership positions but the same diversity was not reflected on the shopfloor. The local team decided to challenge this perception and introduced a roadmap for diversity, equity and inclusion which included:
An initiative to increase the number of female employees in production roles from 0 to 100 with the goal to create a gender-balanced workforce and promote awareness of diversity and inclusion practices.
Improvements to ensure women’s well-being at work such as breastfeeding rooms, women empowerment workshops and cultural trainings for employees to build awareness on female leadership and engage employees to transform the culture together.
As a result, there are today 42 female employees in the shopfloor, showcasing that representation on its own is not an accurate reflection of the true state of diversity in an organization.
In 2013, our site in Nules took important steps to ensure equality by drafting their first Equality Plan. This plan worked as a starting point with the aim to baseline its position as an equal opportunity employer. After that the team in Nules has renewed their Equality Plan twice with one of the targets being recruiting more females in roles that have been traditionally preferred and held by men. Nules has succeeded in attracting female talent as at the end of 2022, the site showed progress on its employment statistics women make up:
- 60% of all employees on site
- 50% of management positions
- 57% of the site leadership teams
- 33% of the logistics department
This is one example of how baselining the starting position and focusing on what matters can help build a more diverse workforce and an inclusive culture step by step.
Our Guiding Principles for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion sets the expectations to which all employees of Huhtamaki are expected to work towards.
Policies that drive our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion work
Embedding diversity, equity and inclusion is well underway across Huhtamaki. We will continue our journey towards our 2030 goals.