Diversity, equality and inclusion
To us at SIG, diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) is about celebrating, recognising and harnessing the value that individual differences bring to our business. Our aim is to ensure everyone at SIG feels included, has a sense of belonging and is treated fairly.
All our employees throughout the Group are expected to help to create a positive working environment by supporting colleagues and treating everyone with respect, dignity, and courtesy. We expect our managers to exercise leadership in this field by discouraging and addressing prejudice, and to lead by example through their behaviour.
Each of our businesses has delivered a range of initiatives such as setting up DEI forums and employee resource groups, working with external partners to recruit people from different backgrounds, reviewing employment policies and processes, and delivering educational communications, tools and resources to support a workplace culture where difference is valued.
The key principles of our DEI approach are to:
- Encourage, promote and maintain an inclusive and supportive work environment, which reflects the rights of individuals to be treated fairly and with respect and enables them to fulfil their potential
- Recruit, develop and retain talent based on skills, qualifications, experience, performance, behaviours and achievements, using clearly defined, fair and inclusive criteria
- Invest in our culture and both our values and behaviours, providing employee learning, development and coaching to encourage an honest and open culture, which values difference
- Support employees to work in a way that suits their circumstances, experience, background, abilities and culture and in a way that supports good mental health and wellbeing
- Develop policies, processes and practices that direct and guide how all employees should conduct themselves both within the organisation and with our external stakeholders and partners, which make our principles and expectations clear, deliver fairness and consistency of approach, and value individuality
- Understand our customers, suppliers, business partners and the communities in which we operate to deliver excellent service to our increasingly diverse stakeholder base
- Ensure that all SIG employees are aware of their rights and their responsibilities in relation to diversity, equality and inclusion and encourage them to make a positive difference through proactively supporting these principles