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It has been eight years since Weetabix launched ‘Inclusion without Exception,’ an EDI strategy designed to leave all employees feeling supported to do their best work.
Claire Canty, Head of HR at the beloved breakfast cereal maker, speaks to HR Grapevine about how it has helped Weetabix become richer, more creative, and more innovative.
She lifts the lid on everything from the role of Inclusion Champions to the delivery of unconscious bias training for hiring managers; shares notable achievements, including a reduced gender pay gap; and outlines how Inclusion without Exception is shifting its focus from building awareness to driving action.
What is Weetabix’s ‘Inclusion without Exception’ commitment?
Inclusion without Exception is our commitment to making sure that every colleague here at Weetabix feels a genuine sense of belonging, every single day, with no exceptions. That's our goal. We believe inclusion is not just the right thing to do for our people on a moral basis, but it also allows our business to thrive.
When individuals can feel that sense of belonging and truly be themselves, and they're not worrying about how they're being perceived or whether they're fitting in, they do their best work at Weetabix.
By welcoming and having a strong sense of belonging for as diverse a group of people as we can reach in backgrounds, experience, and thinking styles, we'll build a richer, more creative and more innovative Weetabix.
Over the last eight years, how has this commitment been brought to life?
Weetabix has brought Inclusion without Exception to life in lots of different practical and meaningful ways since it was created almost eight years ago.
By welcoming and having a strong sense of belonging for as diverse a group of people as we can reach in backgrounds, experience, and thinking styles, we'll build a richer, more creative and more innovative Weetabix.
We have a group of champions that come up with our inclusion plans and help run our inclusion agenda across the business, but really, inclusion is everyone's responsibility. Each year, we speak to every single person across all our shift teams and office teams about the inclusive impact they can have on the people around them. The conversations and interactions we have every day are what create an inclusive environment – or not.
We've also done things like our breakfast sessions, where we’ve invited lots of different colleagues to share their stories and their experiences. That helps us build empathy, understanding, and appreciation of different people, backgrounds, and experiences.
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Elsewhere, we’ve addressed improvements across our site and how accessible it is – such as handrails, visibility, and accessible parking – and introduced wellbeing rooms across all sites. There are practical changes to policies, including our Transition at Work, Neonatal Care Leave, and Fertility Leave Policies, that we've been able to put in place on the basis of the feedback that we've had from the survey.
How does employee input shape your approach here? And what about external support?
At the heart of all of this is our commitment to listening to employees. We do an annual survey every year, gathering feedback from people right across the business, and using that insight to create targeted action plans each year to keep making this place an even more inclusive environment in the future.
Our annual inclusion training for all employees came out of the survey, for example. All of the examples above came from employee insights, driven by our group of inclusion champions who volunteer to work on Inclusion without Exception alongside their current role because they’re passionate about raising the bar.
We partner with specialist external bodies and charities such as the Diversity in Grocery Network, and others across mental health, wellbeing, and neurodiversity, bringing these groups on-site to interact with colleagues in our canteens.
