We are a dynamic, creative and trusted company that respects and strives to represent the diverse values, voices and needs of everyone who works for or with us. We have set an ambition to be a truly inclusive organisation, mirroring the richness of the markets we operate in, and the communities we serve.
We recognise not all Britvic employees will have the same ability or access to resources, privilege and opportunities. Accordingly, we are working towards providing the right support, resources and opportunities for our employees to have a happy, healthy and successful career at Britvic. Similarly, we acknowledge, respect and value peoples’ differences, visible or not. A workforce with diversity of age, disability, gender identity, ethnicity, religion, nationality, marital status, parental/carer status or socio- economic background, expands our collective conscience and creativity. As well as standing against discrimination in all its forms, we embrace and celebrate diversity.
For the first time this year, we invited employees to share some of their protected characteristics in our Employee Heartbeat survey - including sexuality, gender, ethnicity, disability and diverse ability. This was managed confidentially, and 87% of people chose to select their characteristics. We learnt that gender or ethnicity generally doesn’t impact the way employees feel about working at Britvic. Britvic employees who identify as LGBTQIA+ are generally more positive and engaged, have stronger wellbeing and belonging scores, relative to the company average. This exercise also showed we need to better understand the needs of disabled employees and we have plans in place to do this.
Alongside the quantitative data, our Employee Heartbeat survey also gives us a qualitative view of employees’ opinions through the thoughts they share verbatim.
Overall, we’re proud our scores are comfortably above the global benchmark for both consumer companies and manufacturing organisations. However, we want to continually improve our ways of working and make Britvic an even more refreshingly dynamic employer.
In response to this latest survey, we have focused our efforts on growth and development. We have deployed a comprehensive suite of learning opportunities, including specialised training to develop the skills of our commercial and supply chain teams, and our people managers. Face to face training is supported by a suite of nearly 100 online learning resources - so far over 31,000 courses have been completed by our employees.
We have been listening closely to employee feedback and ideas, both through our Employee Heartbeat surveys and regular engagement with our employee network groups. Both provided invaluable insight into how our policies could be more inclusive, flexible and focused on the times in peoples’ lives that really matter.
As a result, we have made a number of positive changes to the specific application and language of our people policies in Great Britain to ensure we remain competitive and that our offerings support an equitable and inclusive environment, truly led by our values.
Along with more inclusive and accessible language, we have made very practical changes to key policies. All Britvic people in Great Britain are eligible to these benefits from their first day of joining the business:
- Paternity leave has been increased from two weeks to four
weeks at full pay - Carers’ leave, which includes up to 26 weeks unpaid, now offers
one week at full pay - Our bereavement leave policy now covers parents who have
experienced miscarriage or a failed fertility treatment - The ability to exchange bank holidays for religious days
- Time off at full pay for all medical appointments with no
restriction on the number of appointments - Offer more menstrual and menopause support
Our B-Proud network group exists for the LGBTQIA+ community and straight allies, demonstrating inclusion and inspiring others to be their authentic selves at Britvic.
In June, we marked Britvic Allies Day to celebrate, spotlight and thank our amazing allies. Our B-proud network hosted a live Spill The Tea panel session to talk about being proud, visible, and how to champion equity, diversity and inclusion. This was followed by workshops and celebrations across our sites in Great Britain, kicking off a host of Pride Month activities including a Pride themed episode of our employee podcast and a suite of information packs and listen and learn sessions that were made available on our learning platform.
Some of our key brands continued to take an active role in supporting the LGBTQIA+ community. Robinsons partnered with Sainsbury’s in support of LGBTQIA+ charities Sparkle and akt during Pride month, donating 15p per promotional Robinsons Creations pack.
Sparkle is the national transgender charity and the money raised helped support The Sparkle Weekend. This is the world’s largest free-to-attend celebration of gender diversity, and a safe space for anyone who identifies as gender non-conforming, their families, friends, and allies.
It also went to akt, formerly the Albert Kennedy Trust, which supports LGBTQIA+ young people aged 16-25 in the UK who are facing or experiencing homelessness or living in a hostile environment.
In Ireland, Ballygowan was the official water sponsor for the Limerick Pride festival for the second year running with employees handing out water to festival goers and participating in the Pride parade. All of the fantastic work carried out by our B-Proud network to promote and support Pride month was recognised by trade publication The Grocer. Our B-Proud co-chair, Cyril Leopoldo was named as one of the top 10 activists making the grocery industry better for the LGBTQIA+ community, using his own experience to help others and speak out against discrimination - helping us create a truly inclusive environment for everyone at Britvic.
Over the past two years, Britvic Ireland has partnered with the charity KARE to support people with disabilities and help them fulfil their potential. Britvic Ireland provided a 12-week internship to two individuals on the KARE programme, that proved to be so successful that both individuals now work in our Kylemore and Rathcoole sites on a permanent basis.
The partnership between Britvic Ireland and KARE continues to grow, with employees from across Britvic Ireland using community days over several weeks to help renovate three KARE supported living properties. Two of our senior sales managers held a one-day training session with the volunteering partnership team at KARE to offer training on sales techniques and building partnerships with organisations. We also worked with marketing agency Oliver to revamp KARE’s website and create a contemporary logo to modernise their brand.
We are a member of the Business Disability Forum which helps us design support programmes and frame our policies. Having access to their knowledge, as well as a chance to learn and share best practice with like-minded organisations, enables us to increase the support we provide to disabled employees.
In Great Britain, we marked Neurodiversity Celebration Week in March in order to help challenge stereotypes and misconceptions about neurological differences. Paul Graham, Managing Director of Great Britain, spoke at the Diversity & Inclusion in Grocery event about what we have learnt and of our journey to support, recruit and retain neurodiverse talent, and how Britvic is creating an inclusive culture by prioritising awareness, education and listening.
Britvic is committed to achieving gender balance in leadership by 2025 and this year achieved 39.5% women in leadership globally. While this number is lower than we would like, we are continuing to pursue our goal. As part of this continued effort, in 2022 we ran a female mentorship programme called Fizz to accelerate female talent. Based on participant feedback we’ve taken the best of the content and integrated it into our broader leadership programmes so participants can benefit from an inclusive culture.
In March, our employee network, B-Empowered, led a global celebration for International Women’s Day - showing the importance of recognising the difference between equality and equity, and how to fight unconscious biases. This allowed us to celebrate globally and shine a spotlight on some of our great female talent.
Representing the communities that we serve matters to us a great deal. It’s why we participate in the cross-industry Black Representation in Marketing initiative and are looking to increase the ethnic diversity in our marketing campaigns in Great Britain, from researchers to influencers and the casting of commercials. Our latest Robinsons and Tango marketing campaigns are the result. In addition to this, our network group B-Diverse has created an advisory panel that brand teams can consult to check for cultural sensitivity and ensure that we authentically represent the communities that are featured.
Britvic employees based in Great Britain now have the ability to exchange bank holidays for religious days. We proudly marked Black History Month, and on Windrush Day welcomed actor Rudolph Walker CBE who shared his experiences as part of the Windrush generation. We also celebrated Channukah, Christmas, Chinese New Year, Diwali, Eid and Vaisakhi.