Talent Attraction, Development & Retention
Discovering and growing the workforce that will carry Greif into the future.
Highlights
- Greif enhances our Build to Last Strategy and business success by actively attracting, developing and retaining top talent globally. Our Global Talent Center ensures the execution of our talent program standards throughout the organization.
- In 2023, we relaunched the Greif University Operating Committee, which enables us to continually improve our learning and development offerings from a fresh perspective.
- Regularly assessing benefits ensures that our offerings remain competitive, responsive to evolving colleague needs and aligned with industry standards, fostering a supportive and attractive workplace.
Why Talent Attraction, Development & Retention Matters
Greif enhances our Build to Last Strategy and business success by actively attracting, developing and retaining top talent globally. From recruitment to succession planning, our global talent management programs place the right individuals in the right roles, enabling us to achieve our aim of excellent customer service. To fulfill our strategy and goals effectively, we focus on nurturing a diverse, engaged and skilled workforce that mirrors the communities where we operate.
Governance
Our Global Talent Management Strategy and Philosophy guides our global standards for talent attraction, performance management, learning, development and retention activities and career planning. The Global Talent Center is responsible for executing these programs—with oversight from our Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer—and collaborates with human resources business partners and regional representatives to deliver both a globally unified and locally relevant talent management approach.
Greif Named a Most Loved Workplace
Greif earned a spot on Newsweek's list of Most Loved Workplaces in 2023 for the Americas for a third consecutive year. Additionally, Greif earned a spot on the global-level Most Loved Workplace list in 2023—a first for the company. Companies are included in the list based on findings from interviews with hundreds of company officials as well as the feedback from 2 million participants in an employee survey. Topics considered include the company's level of collaboration, employees’ optimism about their future with the company, alignment between employer and employee values, mutual respect across all organizational levels and career achievement opportunities.
This achievement demonstrates our commitment to maintaining an exceptional workplace, and we remain dedicated to sustaining and enhancing these positive workplace attributes for our colleagues.
Talent Attraction
Greif remains responsive to evolving work environment preferences expressed by candidates. To retain a competitive edge in talent attraction and retention, remote and hybrid work opportunities are assessed on an individual basis for each role. For remote positions, we disclose pay in accordance with local regulations. We have extended this remote setup by leveraging virtual interviews for potential job candidates and plant tours.
In 2023, we partnered with Career Arc to implement a cohesive and consistently branded presence for further promoting Greif job opportunities on social media. This platform empowers us to seamlessly post directly to colleagues’ LinkedIn profiles—with their consent—ensuring alignment with our brand standards while reaching a broader audience. We also leveraged Career Arc to showcase the Greif culture and colleague engagement activities. These posts garnered high engagement metrics, including shares and reposts. Recognizing this increase in engagement, we anticipate further exploration of this avenue in the future to enhance our outreach and impact.
Greif actively cultivates future talent by offering internships and co-ops that provide invaluable hands-on experience, professional development and networking opportunities for aspiring early career talent. In 2023, we welcomed 49 interns in North America and have now welcomed a total of 201 since the program launched in 2018. We offer internships in our corporate and manufacturing facilities and emphasize engagement in cross-functional projects and gaining insights into operational processes and decision-making. We work with local universities to build partnerships that enable us to recruit top talent for our programs. Please see our Careers page for current internship opportunities.
Our Commitment to Our Colleagues
Regularly assessing our benefits ensures that our offerings remain competitive, responsive to evolving colleague needs and aligned with industry standards. As a global business, eligibility for benefits and policies vary by region. In the U.S., we added a Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account in 2023 for colleagues that allows them to annually contribute pre-tax dollars (up to IRS limits) to cover eligible childcare and adult care expenses. We provide a global Colleague Stock Purchasing Plan that offers maximum legally allowed discount on stock purchase. Our global benefits include:
- Bereavement
- Domestic violence leave
- Family and medical leave
- Short-term disability
- Long-term disability
- Parental leave
- Sick leave
- Colleague Stock Purchasing Plan
- Jury duty time off
- Vacation
- Fair remuneration
- Flexible and remote work options
- Health care
- Overtime pay
- Voting time off
- Local retirement plans
Learning & Development
Learning and development are integral aspects of our employee experience. Since the launch of Greif University in 2021, we have continued to broaden our curriculum to include new topics, including the Greif Business System, compliance and leadership development. Currently, over 6,000 colleagues can access more than 20,000 learning modules and courses through Greif University. We also offer monthly, live, instructor-led presentations on the platform, through our Know and Grow program. Since its launch, Greif University has driven an increase in learning material utilization and training completion rates—of note, 4,484 colleagues completed a learning module in 2023.
Greif University also allows for a more accessible format for compliance and Code of Conduct training for colleagues worldwide. Using Greif University, we can track required training information to maintain internal policy and compliance with relevant regulations. As needed, we also provide additional regional-based training programs to supplement global training.
In 2023, we relaunched the Greif University Operating Committee, which comprises learning and development professionals and select Greif leaders. The Committee is charged with continually improving our offerings, integrating an ongoing fresh perspective and connecting what we offer to current and future business needs.
Workday Learning helps us to connect trainings offered on different platforms to employee performance priorities and ultimately advance colleagues’ development in targeted ways. As we’ve expanded our use of Workday Learning, this has helped us to target specific trainings on skillsets needed for certain positions, and in our broader industry.
Supporting Colleague Well-being
Our care of our colleagues includes five pillars of the overall well-being of each individual: career, social, community, physical and financial. The Global Well-being Council operates based on these five pillars supporting our program to support colleague well-being with representatives in each of Greif’s four regions to bring initiatives to local colleagues. Greif University provides a platform for learning and development on these well-being topics. One popular initiative from FY23 was our Know & Grow Mental Well-being series with an external mental health expert.
- Develop a Leader’s Mindset
- Hold Regular 1-on-1s
- Set Up Your Team to Get Results
- Create a Culture of Feedback
- Lead Your Team Through Change
- Manage Your Time and Energy
Performance Development
We maintain ongoing performance dialogue with colleagues to manage and improve talent development and training programming effectively. Through the Performance Development Review process, we communicate performance expectations, conduct regular quarterly check-ins and annual performance reviews and give the opportunity for colleagues to provide feedback. Competency frameworks inform the assessment and help to develop our colleagues’ knowledge, attitudes, skills and behaviors. Performance and development reviews provide colleagues the opportunity to discuss remuneration and compensation. Information on Greif’s remuneration structure is available to all colleagues globally.
All professional, clerical and administrative colleagues at Greif—approximately 27 percent of Greif’s workforce—are eligible for an annual Performance Development Review (PDR) through Workday. The process consists of self and manager evaluations of performance against job-specific competencies. In 2023, 98 percent of Performance Development Reviews were completed by eligible colleagues, representing our highest completion rate to-date.
In addition to Performance Development Reviews for professional, clerical and administrative colleagues, a number of Greif facilities carry out Performance Development Discussions for production colleagues, totaling approximately 56 percent of our production workforce. We are currently working on developing a standardized approach to Performance Development Discussions to ultimately ensure that all production colleagues have at least an annual performance development conversation by the end of 2025.
Through Individual Development Plans available in Workday, colleagues receive ongoing support for opportunities to learn and develop. We provide resources to managers to support them in communicating with their team about creating these plans, in addition to discussing progress on their career path and setting short- and long-term goals.
Greif’s talent review process guides our succession planning with a standardized schedule for director-level and above roles. This year-round succession planning process aims to enhance our connections with colleagues, bolster talent pipeline diversity and identify the developmental needs among high-potential employees. We automate talent review and succession planning across our global business units to assess talent through “9-Box Reviews”—a tool for measuring performance and identifying leadership potential—and capture succession planning beyond the director level. Annually we hold a talent calibration session with our Executive Leadership Team and a Board-level succession planning review.
Retention & Engagement
We look to colleague engagement as a means of measuring satisfaction with the employee experience at Greif and to better understand where we can improve. We recognize that high engagement is an important driver of colleague retention.
To this end, we conduct an annual survey of our colleagues using the Gallup Q12 Employee Engagement Survey. This survey went out to our global workforce in multiple languages and received a 92 percent response rate in 2023, and the results showed that engagement has continued to rise¹. The survey results highlight the connection between improved colleague engagement and enhanced performance across crucial business initiatives, which was demonstrated by improvements in safety, customer service, financial and human capital metrics. Our score placed us at the 82nd percentile in the Manufacturing sector, and we are actively working toward our goal of reaching the 85th percentile. Based on our 2023 engagement scores, we were invited to apply for the Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award.
Individual managers who receive the highest ratings on the annual survey for their “servant leadership” approach and prioritizing the greater good are recognized with our Watson Award for Servant Leadership. In 2023, we recognized six managers from various Greif locations for their high survey ratings.
The Gallup platform also offers targeted resources based on local survey outcomes. These resources help local leaders respond to survey results and any issues that were raised with clear action plans. In 2023, local leaders submitted more than 1,165 action plans to address concerns and drive engagement.
Greif’s Champions program drives engagement through team and business unit interaction. Our 65 engagement champions exhibit strong leadership qualities and actively promote engagement. Champions participate in monthly meetings designed to provide them with informative and educational materials to improve engagement and drive best practices throughout the organization. These sessions cover a range of topics, including leveraging Gallup Access, developing action plans and gaining insights into the current state of the global workforce.
We have assembled a dedicated team of 17 colleagues to form our Engagement Core Team. The team plays a crucial role in supporting business functions by offering guidance on reporting and reinforcing the validity of colleague engagement surveys. They support material creation for various organizational events and align on pre-survey planning. Furthermore, the team conducts education sessions for managers, HR and champions, while also devising and executing communication strategies to promote engagement efforts effectively.
Recognizing a job-well-done is an important part of colleague engagement and retention. Through our internal platform Spark, our employees can post to a group feed to recognize the accomplishments of another colleague. Greif colleagues can also be nominated by their managers or peers for embodying The Greif Way as part of the Champions program. On a quarterly basis, the Executive Leadership Team selects four colleagues from the group that was nominated. Selected Champions are recognized for their embodiment of the values and behaviors integral to achieving one mission from our Build to Last Strategy and receive a customized panel on the Champions Wall at Greif’s corporate headquarters in Delaware. Greif also donates $1,000 to the recipient’s non-profit organization of choice.
In 2024, we aim to revamp and enhance our Champions program and additional engagement initiatives.
Goals, Progress & Performance
2025 Goals:
- 100 percent of permanent colleagues will participate in regular performance development discussions by the end of FY25.
- Using a FY17 baseline, increase average hours of annual training per colleague by 50 percent by the end of FY25.
- 100 percent of colleagues will be covered by parental leave by the end of FY25.
Continuous improvement has been a central factor for talent attraction, development and retention to achieve noticeable progress toward our 2025 goals. In 2023, 98 percent of our eligible professional, clerical and administrative colleagues completed performance reviews. We plan to actively educate our colleagues about the benefits and value of performance reviews to reach our 100 percent goal. Performance Development Discussions are already in place for 56.4 percent of our production workforce, and we are currently developing a standardized approach to ultimately ensure that all production colleagues have at least a yearly performance development conversation by the end of 2025.
With continued growth, access to training and development resources and the launch of Greif University, we are tracking on our training goal and achieved an average of 6.29 hours of training per colleague in 2023. We are actively developing new goals and targets for 2030 to continuously improve our support for employee training and development going forward.
In 2023, our parental leave benefits covered 99.64 percent of Greif colleagues, and we continue to work to achieve our goal of 100 percent coverage.
COLLEAGUES COVERED BY PARENTAL LEAVE POLICIES
| FY 2019 | FY 2020 | FY 2021 | FY 2022 | FY 2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 56% | 62% | 68% | 99% | 99.6% |
| Asia Pacific | 28% | 29% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Europe, Middle East & Africa | 99% | 96% | 96% | 96% | 98.6% |
| Latin America | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| North America | 18% | 33% | 32% | 100% | 100% |
| FY 2019 | FY 2020 | FY 2021 | FY 2022 | FY 2023 | ||
| Training Hours per Colleague1 | ||||||
| 5.5 | 5 | 5.38 | 5.35 | 6.29 | |
| 3.2 | 2 | 8.6 | 5.6 | 14 | |
Colleagues and managers eligible for compliance training in Greif University | - | - | - | 3,344 | 6,532 | |
| Average Training Hours by Gender2, 3 | ||||||
Male | - | - | - | - | 8.2 | |
Female | - | - | - | - | 5.2 | |
| Colleagues Completing Regular Performance Reviews4 | 92% | 89.1% | 87% | 80.2% | 65.4% | |
Professional, clerical and administrative employees receiving regular performance reviews | 92% | 89.1% | 87% | 80.2% | 97.7% | |
Production employees receiving regular performance reviews | 56.4% | |||||
| Colleagues Completing Regular Performance Reviews by gender, Successfully Completed | ||||||
Male | - | - | - | 1,518 | 5,881 | |
Female | - | - | - | 890 | 1,336 | |
| Employees across all locations who have received training on environmental issues | 74% | 71% | 71.2% | 68.1% | 62% | |
| Employees across all locations who have received career and skills-related training | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | |
| Professional colleagues who have completed training on Code of Conduct5 | 94.8% | |||||
| Professional colleagues who have completed training on Anti-bribery | 97.6% | |||||
| Employees across all locations who have who have completed training on Human Rights Issues7 | 83.3% | |||||
| Professional colleagues who have completed training on Anti-trust6 | 3,638 | 383 | ||||
- Average hours of training per unique participant. Data excludes safety training and local functional training. FY2017 data has been restated from the 2018 Sustainability Report to exclude this data. For more information on safety training, please see Health & Safety.
- Includes eligible professional, clerical and administrative colleagues.
- FY2022 data was inaccurately reported in previous report.
- Production employees’ performance reviews were not tracked prior to FY2023.
- Code of Conduct training includes the following topics: recognize employees' responsibility to safeguard confidential company information and intellectual property, identify situations that may create or give the appearance of a conflict of interest, recognize employees' responsibility to conduct themselves in a manner that is consistent with our organization's values, culture, and mission, recognize employees' responsibility to avoid conflicts of interest or the appearance of conflicts of interest when accepting gifts and offers of business entertainment, recognize the benefit of an organizational environment where retaliation is prohibited, verify that you have read and agree to comply with the Greif Code of Conduct
- Anti-trust training was only offered to new hires in FY2023.
- Human Rights Training includes the topics of human rights grievance process, community and stakeholder engagement, freedom of association and right to collective bargaining, elimination of forced and compulsory labor, abolition of child labor, diversity/anti-harassment/anti-discrimination, work hours/wages/benefits, safe and healthy workplace, workplace security, and working against corruption/extortion/bribery, and fair treatment of others.
Greif Scholarship Program
In 2007, Greif established a scholarship program to assist our colleagues’ children who plan to continue education in college or vocational school programs. Scholarship recipients are selected based on financial need, academic record, demonstrated leadership, participation in school and community activities, honors, statement of educational aspirations and goals, unusual personal and family circumstances and an outside appraisal.
The program is administered by Scholarship Management Services, a division of Scholarship America. Scholarship Management Services is the nation's largest designer and manager of scholarship and tuition reimbursement programs for corporations, foundations, associations and individuals. Awards are granted regardless of race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, gender, disability or national origin. Scholarship Management Services make the selection of recipients. In no circumstance does any officer or colleague of Greif play a part in the selection. In 2023, we supported 60 scholarships. Since 2007, 336 students from around the world have received Greif-sponsored scholarships.
Greif University
In 2021, we launched Greif University, our training platform with different strategic learning offerings. Greif University serves as a unified place where all employees can go for development. We currently offer over 20,000 courses and learning modules from internal and external sources in different categories, including Customer Service Excellence, Environmental Health & Safety and Leadership & Professional Development. Each module is available in English and Spanish to train employees in their local language. Since launching Greif University, there has been a significant increase in the use of development materials and higher training completion rates. We also upgraded Greif University at the beginning of FY2023, expanding colleagues’ access to LinkedIn Learning courses.
Global Launch and Roll Out of Lead to Last Program
Greif’s Lead to Last Program, launched in 2022 as part of our Global Leadership Development Framework, provides all global leaders with a unified model of leadership expectations. This training is offered through Greif University and conducted in 12-week cycles in which participants learn about inclusive, safety and values-drive leadership. Lead to Last focuses on equipping participants with the ability to:
- Develop a Leader’s Mindset
- Hold Regular 1-on-1s
- Set Up Your Team to Get Results
- Create a Culture of Feedback
- Lead Your Team Through Change
- Manage Your Time and Energy
Greif introduced Lead to Last sessions in Spanish, Chinese and Portuguese in addition to English in 2023. Since program inception, 686 colleagues have participated in the program.
