Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Creating a diverse workforce and a culture of fairness and belonging to serve our diverse global customers.
Highlights
- Our culture is people focused, enriched by the value we place on diversity, equity and inclusion. As part of our strategic mission to create thriving communities, we are focused on creating a sense of togetherness and belonging as we welcome diverse perspectives, ideas, skills, knowledge and cultures throughout our organization and in our communities.
- In 2023, we established the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Steering Committee to coordinate diversity, equity and inclusion efforts across all sites and facilitate best practice sharing.
- We achieved our goal of attaining global gender pay parity and remain committed to doing so moving forward.
- In 2023, we expanded our Colleague Resource Groups (CRGs) with the addition of VETS, reaching a total of seven CRGs. Over 1,200 colleagues participated in our CRGs in 2023.
Why Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Matters
Greif recognizes diversity, equity and inclusion as foundational to our operations, and we aim to cultivate a workplace where colleagues are welcomed, included and engaged. By integrating diversity into our core values and strategic mission, we foster greater awareness and inclusive conversations that enable us to treat our people the right way, embrace differences and promote belonging. We firmly believe that diverse perspectives, ideas, skills, knowledge and cultures are catalysts for innovation, propelling us to fulfill our organizational purpose and execute our Build to Last Strategy. We are committed to equal opportunity and do not tolerate harassment and discrimination in the workforce.
Greif Core Value: Strong through Diversity |
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We encourage and embrace our diversity of culture, language, location and thought. Our differences define but do not divide us; our common interests unite us. From the many, we are one: Greif. |
Governance
With regular Board and Executive Leadership support, the Global Talent Center and Human Resources team drive our diversity, equity and inclusion strategy. A new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Steering Committee, led by our Human Resources team, was established in 2023 with a global, cross-functional structure, including representatives from various departments such as Total Rewards, Operational Leadership and the Supply Chain Executive Leadership Team. The Steering Committee meets quarterly and enables stronger governance and coordination around Greif’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs. While individual facilities often organize and implement initiatives best suited to their specific contexts, the Steering Committee drives connection and shares learnings from local initiatives across all areas of the business, often through strategic working sessions. Additionally, the Steering Committee tracks and reports progress through consistent companywide communications, such as the intranet, newsletters and town halls. Reporting into the Steering Committee on a quarterly basis is a Management Committee, which actively develops and supports initiatives to advance Greif toward becoming a more diverse and inclusive workforce.
Our diversity, equity and inclusion framework is based on the LEAD model: Listen, Engage, Act and Develop colleagues. We believe all colleagues play a role and hold shared responsibility for fostering diversity and inclusion throughout the organization, opting not to have centralized positions like a Chief Diversity Officer.
Colleagues who share a common passion take the initiative to establish specific CRGs with guidance from an Executive Leadership Team sponsor. CRGs are composed of Greif colleagues who either share a defining characteristic or attribute—such as gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, generational or other common interests—or colleagues who are supportive of and/or allied with these groups. Through the CRGs, colleagues can receive personal or career development support, share experiences and contribute to a diverse and supportive workplace culture. In 2023, we expanded our CRGs with the addition of VETS for a total of seven groups with over 1,200 members. Our CRGs actively engage with and provide updates to members of the Executive Leadership Team.
Greif Diversity Month
In October 2023, we launched Diversity Month, a collaborative initiative across the CRGs featuring various activities, such as sharing updates on our diversity, equity and inclusion governance structure and hosting panel discussions. This initiative marked the first joint effort from our CRGs to highlight the importance of and increase awareness around diversity and inclusion throughout Greif. As our CRGs expand, we continue to identify opportunities to coordinate efforts across these groups and drive our diversity, equity and inclusion goals.
Greif’s 2023 Colleague Resource Groups
| Group | Description | Members | Primary Activities in 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Greif's Women Network (GWN) | Mission: A diverse and inclusive network working together to inspire, connect and develop women for the success of Greif. Vision: To support and enhance the experience and contributions of women at Greif, and to elevate diverse perspectives across the organization through gender parity. | 341 |
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| Black Employees Engaging @ Greif (BEE@Greif) | Mission: To strengthen a world-class, diverse, engaged and inclusive workforce to deliver on Greif's strategic priorities through a focus on recruitment, retention, learning and advancement of black colleagues at Greif. Vision: To help shape a culture that empowers the voices and fosters engagement among black colleagues and their allies at Greif. | 204 |
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| ¡HOLA! | Mission: ¡HOLA! is a global community that aims to promote a deeper understanding of the Latino/Hispanic culture and its connection to our Greif family. Vision: ¡HOLA!'s goal is to make a difference that inspires our colleagues to achieve collaboration and innovation, through promoting inclusion and diversity of Hispanic and Latino cultures throughout Greif. We strive to build an inclusive work environment, in which all colleagues feel proud, with a comprehensive, collaborative environment to serve our customers. | 182 |
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| NextGen | Mission: To attract and retain our workforce of the future. Vision: To develop a supportive network for young professionals and create a culture that embraces their opportunities and ensures that their voices are heard in shaping the future of Greif. | 287 |
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| EDGE | Mission: To build a confident and outspoken Asian community within Greif. Vision: To provide a platform for members in Asia to achieve full potential and contribute by recognizing and overcoming challenges from globalization and cultural barriers. | 116 |
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| PRIDE | To develop a supportive network for our LGBTQIA+ colleagues, to deepen our understanding of workplace challenges, and to strengthen a diverse, engaged and inclusive workforce to deliver on Build to Last missions. | 77 |
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| VETS | Mission: To embrace our proud community of colleague veterans who support and encourage each other through shared experiences, veteran recruitment, career development, outward engagement, professional growth and retention. Bringing together unique military service backgrounds, we seek to harness our veterans’ strengths of commitment, service, leadership and a bias for action to better serve Greif, our communities and our customers. Vision: Empowering Veterans, Strengthening Greif. | 40 |
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Our commitment to pay equity and transparency emphasizes the importance of fair compensation in attracting and retaining a diverse workforce as well as creating an inclusive environment where all employees are recognized and rewarded equitably for their contributions. In 2021, we conducted a study of gender pay equity and have made significant efforts to address any pay inequities identified by the study. As a result, in 2023, we achieved our goal of attaining global gender pay parity. We remain committed to leveraging our job catalogue, global job descriptions and pay ranges in all countries and global grades to maintain pay parity. As Greif continues to expand through acquisitions, continuous monitoring becomes increasingly vital to uphold pay parity principles and ensure fairness across our growing organization.
Recognizing that diversity, equity and inclusion is historically an industry-wide challenge, our commitment extends to integrating diversity, equity and inclusion practices across the entire colleague lifecycle, starting with recruitment. We have strategically prioritized diversity, equity and inclusion as a key focus area for our talent attraction and retention initiatives. Greif’s comprehensive policies support this commitment, and our Anti-Harassment and Anti-Discrimination Policy applies to all individuals during the recruitment phase and throughout professional development opportunities.
In 2023, we made efforts to develop a more diverse talent pipeline through an expanded and targeted recruitment approach. Some of these efforts included partnerships with universities and institutions, increasing the diversity of qualified candidates for job openings and using various recruitment tools and platforms to ensure Greif’s visibility to a diverse talent pool. As new colleagues join Greif, our CRGs play a significant role in helping them feel included and that they belong, as well as opening doors to long-term success and career development opportunities.
Recruiting and Building a Diverse Workforce
In 2023, we increased our efforts to support the recruitment of veterans through various initiatives. Our Talent Attraction teams have been working with our new VETS Colleague Resource Group to improve our military recruitment practices, including using veterans-specific job board sites and participating in veterans-focused job fairs.
In 2023, we partnered with Oplign to support recruiting military talent by aligning military occupational specialties with applicable jobs and skillsets across our business. This strategic initiative aligns the diverse military backgrounds of candidates seamlessly with the skills and experiences outlined in Greif's job descriptions. This strategic partnership supports our commitment to diverse talent attraction, enabling a streamlined integration of valuable military expertise into our workforce.
In 2022, we began an analysis to identify challenges and pain points that may contribute to a colleague’s decision to leave the organization, particularly those identifying as women. As a result of this analysis and recognizing the need for consistent and comprehensive data across our operations on colleagues’ leaving decisions, our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Management Committee is working to formalize and standardize the exit interview and stay interview processes. We also updated our succession planning for key positions to include diversity considerations.
In 2022, colleagues at the manager level and above (including the Board of Directors and Executive Leadership Team) completed unconscious bias and inclusive leadership training. The training was conducted through Greif University, which also includes numerous, on-demand learning modules that build on our inclusive leadership training, enabling the continuous reinforcement of these key concepts. For example, there is a custom diversity, equity and inclusion learning journey that focuses on the importance of belonging, individual accountability and cultivating cultural competence as key learning concepts available to all colleagues.
Goals, Progress & Performance
2025 Goal:
- Using a FY17 baseline, increase the proportion of women in management positions by 25 percent by the end of FY25.
- Attain global gender pay parity1.
- Increase the number of female colleagues in our workforce to 25 percent.
- Be in the top 25 percent of manufacturing companies globally for female colleague engagement scores, as measured by the annual Gallup workforce survey.
We continue to make notable progress toward our diversity goals. In 2023, we achieved gender pay parity and are now focused on sustaining and embedding this into the organization. Our DE&I Steering and Management Committees are creating action plans to progress our female representation goals including increasing female representation in management positions. In 2023, our representation of females in management positions increased slightly to 21 percent, compared to 20 percent in 2022². We continue to leverage our Leadership Council and the GWN to reinforce the importance of creating a diverse talent pipeline and ensuring we attract and retain women leaders across Greif. We are also ahead of forecasted schedule with respect to female colleague engagement and now hope to reach Gallup top quartile by 2026.
Cross-functional DE&I Steering and Management Committees are now operating to drive action and provide governance to our DE&I objectives. We have teams working to develop robust exit and stay interview processes, along with facility and process scanning to identify opportunities to make our working environments appropriate for female colleagues.
Women in Greif Workforce
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| FY 2019 | FY 2020 | FY 2021 | FY 2022 | FY 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Percentage of Women in Management | 16% | 16% | 16% | 20%3 | 21% |
| Percentage of Women in Workforce4 | 23% | 23% | 23% | 15% | 17% |
[3] 2022 data is restated from Greif’s 2022 Sustainability Report. In 2023, we refined our definition of "management" by adjusting the salary bands, resulting in a change in the data.
[4] In April 2022, Greif finalized its divestment of the Flexible Packaging joint venture (FPS) to Gulf Refined Packaging. This divestment is the cause of the decline in percentage women in workforce from FY 2021 to FY 2022.
Unconscious Bias Training
Unconscious bias is how our brains work to compensate for overload which cna inhibit performance and lead to poor decision making. Our Unconscious Bias: Understanding Bias to unleash Potential offering aims to counteract that negative impact. The interactive course helps our leaders and colleagues address bias and helps them thrive, increasing performance in their areas and across the business. This course has been offered to a small number of teams and is launching this year as a core development offering for the entire business, facilitated by our own internal certified facilitators. This adds to our deep library of content to address and educate our business around the world of DEI.
