Our teammates are the key to becoming the world's best paper and packaging company. Supporting their success and promoting their safety is how we build a strong, sustainable future.
Committed to Our Teammates and Communities
WestRock is investing in education, safety and the communities where we live:
- Empowering our teammates to build meaningful careers
- Advancing diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging at WestRock
- Striving for maximum safety
- Giving back to the places where we operate
We will provide access to technical training for one million individuals by 2030, while advancing our diversity programs, continually improving our safety culture and providing environmental, social and other programming to support our communities.
The WestRock community includes nearly 50,000 teammates across more than 300 locations in 30 countries around the world. We seek to be the employer of choice by providing development opportunities, leadership on safety, a culture that puts people first and a diverse, inclusive and engaged workplace. We continually refine our strategies for attracting and retaining talented teammates, and we seek to provide an environment in which our team members can grow, make meaningful impacts and realize their potential.
Teammates
Hours of leadership, technical, functional, safety and compliance-focused training in 2021
Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Belonging
WestRock strives to be a company where each teammate feels they belong, are respected and valued and can do their best work, and where diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging are competitive advantages. WestRock is working to achieve improvement at all levels for women, people of color and veterans in a number of ways:
- Education. Our team members are trained to identify and address unconscious bias, and our managers also participate in Inclusive Leadership training.
- Engagement. Our WestRock Resource Groups have a combined membership of more than 3,800 teammates around the globe.
- Recruitment. Our talent acquisition team and programs focus on increasing our diverse hiring – overall, on college campuses, in our rotational programs and through veteran and military programs.
Looking forward
We are continuing to invest in building an exceptional talent pool and a culture where all teammates can be their authentic selves. We are excited to add several initiatives this year, including:
- Accelerated Leadership Program to increase management diversity
- Enhanced parental leave benefits
- Benefits availability from day one of joining WestRock
- Benefits for part-time teammates
- A new engagement with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, including scholarships and enhanced engagement with historically Black colleges and universities
Protecting the health, safety and well-being of our team members is one of our core values and top priorities. Ensuring our teammates’ safety is critical to our business and to our sustainability goals, essential for attracting, retaining and motivating top talent–and the right thing to do. WestRock applies a robust approach to identify and control risk at every sites. We encourage our team members to drive continuous improvement by identifying, reporting and reducing risk in their work environment, and we provide positive recognition when they do.
Reduction in the number of life-changing events, 2019 - 2021
“We’re focused on building robust systems, so people aren’t injured if they make a mistake. We’re asking our teammates to tell us more about how they work and where they see risk. Then we look to design the risk out of our system, so if someone makes a mistake, they’ll still be okay.”
- Allison Montgomery, Vice President of Health & Safety
Investing Where We Work
Our communities make us strong, and we aim to help strengthen them in turn. We leverage our skills and resources to drive real, lasting improvements, with a focus on environmental sustainability, education, workforce development and teammate community engagement. WestRock engages in strategic philanthropy partnerships at the enterprise level, and we encourage each of our facilities to identify and participate in activities that will benefit its communities. Our locations connect to their communities through sponsorships, and teammates volunteer to spruce up public green spaces, engage students in STEM activities, staff volunteer emergency services organizations and mentor the workforce of tomorrow, among countless other efforts.
“In 2021, we continued to hone our strategy, and we expanded our focus on urban tree canopies to invest in more communities within our operating footprint. We will continue to sharpen our focus in the years ahead to ensure we continue to make a meaningful impact in our communities.”
- Mandy Burnette, Director, Corporate Giving
Meals our Stock the Box annual food drive provided for local food banks and pantries in 2021
Grants provided to WestRock team members through the Employee Relief Fund, totaling more than $2.6 million
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