Employability
Our business performance depends on attracting, motivating and retaining talented employees. We aim to provide opportunities for development and engagement in all phases of the “life cycle” of employment. Dynamic development of our employees is key, and our aim is to enable everyone at Elopak to build their career and achieve their goals with us.
Our new set of promises describes principles and standards of behavior that shape how we carry out our work and interact with each other. Together with our promises and focus on safety and ethical behavior, we aim to create a motivating and engaging workplace where we take care of both people and planet.
Approach
Motivating workplace
Securing a motivating workplace is carried out through a systematic focus on employability and working conditions. This is maintained through various policies, procedures, guidelines and people processes, available to all employees. This includes fair remuneration, the opportunity to grow through learning and development, recognition and feed-back, and belonging to a positive and healthy work culture.
Elopak respects all applicable laws, rules, regulations and industry standards concerning working hours, minimum wages and rules related to the working environment rights defined by the United Nations. Read more about this here.
Development – Learning and training
EloPeople, our digital and global HR platform, offers a single data collection point for all global learning programs and contains a wide range of courses.
The platform also allows us to track training, ensuring compliance with the Code of Conduct & Anti-Corruption Policy, GDPR, IT Security, hygiene and safety requirements, and other relevant training courses.
Regular performance and development dialogues
Our performance process is built upon both a formal process and frequent 1:1 follow-up –dialogue between managers and employees to ensure that we all work towards common goals, accelerate performance, and help employees grow and develop. These processes are supported by the EloPeople platform.
This mandatory process is described in a governing document that has been revised and updated in 2021 after re-launching the process with the aim of simplifying and reinforcing the purpose. With this revamp of the process, we ran several training sessions for managers on how to conduct performance dialogues and developed training on how to give feedback. We also included a new section on our promises – to ensure that we integrate our promises in the way we work and how we treat each other.
Operational excellence
In 2021, Elopak introduced the Elopak Operational Improvement Award, which recognizes and rewards the individuals, teams, and organizations that have contributed to achieving operational excellence and transformation.
Read more
We need continuous improvement of capabilities to fulfil our strategic ambitions. Dynamic development of our employees is key, and we aim to enable everyone at Elopak to build their career and to achieve their goals with us.
Almedina B. Jahre, Group Head Talent management.
Performance
Targets
Elopak offers a top-quartile motivating workplace within industry by 2025
85% of employees have individual targets and documented competence development plans
KPIs | KPI reference | |
a) % employees having performance dialogues b) Employee turnover rate c) Average annual training hours per employee | GRI 401-1 GRI 404-3 GRI 404-1 | |
Status 2021 | ||
a) 76 % b) 7,7 % c) 1,8 hours | ||
Motivating workplace
At the end of 2021, Elopak had 2106 employees, of which 98.5% were employed on a permanent basis.
An engagement survey was conducted to investigate our employees’ well-being and motivation after the challenges and restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic.
1017 persons responded, representing a total of 48% of our employees. Of the people answering, 58% worked from home, while 42% worked from their usual work environment/workplace. The survey shows sustained employee engagement during the crisis and most of our employees’ feedback indicates that they trust Elopak’s response to the crisis. They feel connected to colleagues and the workplace, and they feel that management has acted proactively with information and collaboration. They also feel that they manage a healthy work-life balance.
Development
In 2021 we continued with our Project Management Academy to further strengthen our project capabilities. We see that implementing project management across the organization helps create a strategic value chain and we will continue to prioritize upskilling within this area in 2022.
We have also implemented an Onboarding program, knowing that an investment in an effective onboarding program is an investment in employee retention, employee satisfaction, and productivity.
Strengthening the process in several ways led to a substantial improvement of performance dialouge meetings held this year, a total of 76% registered performance dialouges, up from 22% the previous year.
We also offered courses to a pilot group on a wide range of topics containing more than 500 subjects like communications skills and leadership training. The e-Learning pilot received positive feedback and will be continued.
In 2021, 1700 employees have completed one or more courses, and the average is 1.8 hours of training per employee, down from 2.8 in 2020. We have registered approximately 5,700 course completions, a 7% increase compared to 2020. The decrease in average hours of training is explained by a shift from classroom training to digital upskilling, as classroom courses are more extensive.
Our operations around the world conduct several regional and local training activities, which are not necessarily registered in EloPeople and as such not included in the training hours reported above. This includes health and safety, environment and quality, as well as leadership development adapted to local or regional needs.
Internal training courses
2019 | 2020 | 2021 | |
Webbased | 63 % | 74 % | 90 % |
Virtual | 18 % | 5 % | 8 % |
Instructor-led | 19 % | 22 % | 2 % |
Case
Community engagement
To build a truly sustainable and inclusive workplace, we also believe in engaging and creating value in cooperation with local communities. A recurring activity is “Forskerfabrikken” (Ferd social entrepreneur “Science Lab”) at some of our larger sites. This project aims to increase interest among young people for STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and to increase knowledge of Elopak as a workplace. Due to the pandemic since March 2020, this has unfortunately been delayed.
Below some examples of how some of our local business units engage with the local community:
The Netherlands:
- Sponsoring several sports clubs in the Region (soccer, tennis, padel, cycling, etc.)
- Co-sponsor of a new car for regional high school.
- Delta Ride for the Roses: entry fee paid by Elopak, goes to charity.
- Support of Regional Technique Experience: several colleagues promote the Technique to students.
- Employees are given the opportunity to (partly) donate the Christmas present (box with gifts, food) to the ‘food bank’ (free food for poor people).
- Hiring employees that meet challenges in the labor market.
- Walking App provided to employees (‘Ommetje App’), also supporting the ‘Dutch brain foundation’).
Austria:
- Donation once a year to a large social association called “Licht ins Dunkel.” The association supports different social projects, as well as projects for people with disabilities, and support children and families with financial challenges.
- Support to an association that helps families and children, providing vacations for those who cannot afford them, and helping children and teens build their self-confidence.
Serbia:
- Cooperation with a recruitment agency on a project called “Business inclusion,” which leads to the recruitment of an employee with a disability.
- Through the project “My first salary’’, two talented students were recruited to internships and given the chance to gain practical knowledge and experience.
Norway:
- Sponsoring events and participation in a local cycling race for families in Spikkestad.
- Donation to an annual TV event supporting the fight against child marriage.
Moving forward
Motivating workplace
Future priorities will be to continue addressing and measuring the engagement of our employees and implement a new pulse survey tool in 2022, allowing us to measure further progress.
Development
In 2022, we aim to develop a framework for leadership development and continue to train our leaders in our new promises Empower, Unite, and Accelerate. We will also aim to expand e-Learning to a greater extent, based on the evaluation of the pilot. We will also continue to develop our talent and performance management, including succession planning.