Dialog with our employees

Leadership for a common vision

For an internationally active and growing corporate group like Greiner, management is a central topic, and intercultural management competence is a decisive success factor. To us, leadership means creating an environment in which our employees are inspired to tackle the challenges facing our company with creativity, innovation and dedication and to find solutions. This is precisely what leadership at Greiner is. With our managers, we want to develop a common vision that motivates our employees in the long term with empathy and responsibility that is lived. We support and encourage our managers, accompany them and want to show development paths. Given this, training programs for managers and young managers are therefore a fixed component to learn leadership, to reflect and to constantly review progress.

Supporting managers on their journey

As diverse as leaders are and should be, the ways people reach leadership positions are equally varied. Through our training opportunities LEAD and BRIDGE, we at Greiner Packaging support these individual processes: LEAD, for example, gives our managers an opportunity to reflect on their roles and responsibilities and on their responsibility as managers. This aims to provide a chance to reflect on practices that have developed in the day-to-day work environment, to compare these to our values and principles and, if necessary, to make changes. The goal is to create standards for innovative and efficient leadership and to put these into practice in everyday activities. BRIDGE is aimed at experts whose expertise predestines them to becoming bridge builders and, in this role, to pursuing cross-location and cross-border topics and projects and leading to sustainable results. Participants learn the techniques of “lateral leadership” to take on management responsibilities without having direct authority so that jobs can be carried out based on partnership and a solutions-oriented approach.

Dialog with our employees

In order to promote the development and thus the satisfaction of our employees, we have stepped up dialog and discussions with them over the past few years. This includes regular feedback discussions about their work, their potential and their individual development requests. Despite the challenges presented by the pandemic, we have so far weathered this difficult time well thanks to the flexibility and commitment of our employees. We are aware that this period was not an easy time for our employees.

Performance review rate¹

Performance review rate by division¹

Given this, we deliberately chose to carry out a global employee survey in the middle of the pandemic to give us a better understanding of how our employees are doing, what motivates them and where we as a company can improve. We intend to repeat this employee survey once a year moving forwards, because continual, systematic discussions are important. It allows us to identify company developments, spot potential for improvement and evaluate the effectiveness of existing measures more precisely than before. It is especially helpful in terms of achieving our sustainability targets if all employees are asked their opinion each year. This way, we can quickly determine whether we are on the right track or continue to work on areas where there is still potential for improvement. In any case, the fact that almost three quarters (72 percent) of our employees took part in the first ever global survey encourages us to pursue this project. We will very carefully analyze the data from this survey and integrate the findings into our company policies.

“Empathy and responsibility that is lived among all colleagues are our basis for a sustainable future.”

Make the most of potential, promote strengths

We have set up multiple development programs as a way of better addressing the constant state of flux in the world of work in general and, in particular, our employees’ desire for professional development. The first of these programs worth noting is the Greiner Expert & Management Succession Program (GEMs) for sustainable and quality-oriented staffing of specialists and managers. GEMs is not only about identifying key positions in the company and checking whether there are back-up and succession regulations for these functions. The program is also an initiative for structured development of our employees’ potential. This is also the goal of our Orientation Center, which provides Greiner employees with a space to discover their own strengths and potential for development while also receiving internal and external feedback. The Orientation Center is also the basis for planning personal development towards a career as a manager or specialist, as well as a requirement for being accepted to the General Management Program (GMP).

Through the Organizational Clarity project launched by Greiner Packaging in 2020, we are also aiming to create more clarity about roles, interfaces and responsibilities at the company through a standardized company-wide job grading structure. The job grading structure, which is custom built for Greiner Packaging, allows for a wide range of personnel and organizational development measures. These include needs-based and personalized career planning, including internal promotion opportunities, and tailored leadership, performance and talent management programs. Managers thus have a framework for how to manage and develop their employees and can provide them with individual help and support throughout their entire career at the company.