Diversity in the workplace is high on the agenda for Greiner Packaging. In recent months, their Northern Ireland team have taken proactive steps to champion equality, diversity, and inclusion in the manufacturing sector.
Greiner Packaging, part of the Greiner Group operates a global network of production facilities and employs 290 staff at their Northern Ireland plant in Dungannon. The thriving business is passionate about making a positive impact in the world, from their sustainable approach to making plastic packaging recyclable, reusable, or compostable, to adopting ethical and inclusive processes to recruit, train, and manage the wellbeing of employees.
In 2019, Greiner signed up to Diversity Mark and has since achieved the robust Bronze Diversity Mark accreditation. The company’s management team identified a number of diversity and inclusion goals including updating company policies and educating and training staff on diversity and inclusion. This process has been made easier with support from the Equality Commission in Northern Ireland.
The Equality Commission provide advice to employers to help them establish equality related policies and train staff on equality, diversity, and inclusion. Greiner Packaging availed of this support, receiving expert advice and recommendations that enabled the manufacturing company to update their policies. The Equality Commission also participated in training events to educate staff on the main aspects of equality legislation, definitions of discrimination, positive work environments, and other relevant diversity and inclusion issues. During the sessions, employees were briefed on their responsibilities, and the company’s action plan to meet its equality, diversity, and inclusion goals.
Diversity and Inclusion lead within Greiner Packaging, Maeve Turbitt, was grateful for the contribution made by The Equality Commission:
“The Equality Commission have been very helpful in supporting us to get everyone in our business trained on Diversity and Inclusion. This is a target we set ourselves in the first year of gaining our Bronze Diversity Mark Award.
The Equality Commission worked with me to devise the training content and co-presented this for two sessions to approximately 90 colleagues via Teams. They also reviewed our Equal Opportunities Policy and Positive Work Environment Policy and made recommendations accordingly so we could relaunch these in line with the training.”
During the training, the Greiner team took the opportunity to remind everyone of the Ethical Trading Initiative Base Code the company signed up to and is audited on, as well as the Greiner Code of Conduct and the Whistle Blowing Policy and phone number. Employees completed a short quiz after the training to ensure they understood the content. Ongoing training on equality, diversity and inclusion is being rolled out in-house by Greiner’s People and Culture Team.
If your company has decided to commit to embedding equality, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace, please get in touch with our team at Diversity Mark.
The Equality Commission would also be keen to talk to you about the support they can provide. Contact Frank Fleming at ffleming@equalityni.org for more information.
