At Nestlé Purina, diversity and inclusion is focused on more than simply seeking high-performing talent.
When we created our Diversity & Inclusion Council, we strived to focus on Workforce, Community, Culture and Marketplace as the core foundations of our mission charter. The council’s role is to determine how we can support a culture that integrates diversity throughout the organization. Inclusion is equally important in achieving a work environment in which all individuals can contribute fully to the organization’s success.
Our Community Outreach Program allows our associates to embrace diversity by getting involved in our communities and making connections externally. Building these relationships has a positive impact on their performance within our business. Our employee engagement with organizations like National Sales Network, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, OCA Pan Asian and Starkloff Disability Institute helps build on leadership and individual development.
I believe the role as head of Diversity, Inclusion and Gender Balance is to systematically build long-term plans to increase the collective knowledge, understanding and commitment to diversity, inclusion and gender balance.
Our strategies address recruitment, development, retention and engagement of an incoming workforce that will be more diverse in terms of traditional visible forms of diversity, as well as the invisible aspects. These may include a person’s geographical background, how they approach problem-solving and form ideas, what cultures they have been exposed to, and many others.
We want our associates to bring 100 percent of who they are to work so they can rise above the ordinary and be extraordinary. “I believe that none of us are as good as all of us.”
Nestlé Purina recently was voted the 2014 Top Workplace in the “Large” company category in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for the third consecutive year.
Annette C. Morris is director and head of Diversity, Inclusion & Gender Balance
At Nestlé Purina PetCare Company.
