Pub, cider and beer business Heineken UK has hosted its first ever townhall show dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) for its 2,100 employees.
The show, called ‘Brewing Inclusion’, was filmed and broadcast live from Brighton at the city’s Pride event, which Heineken took part in for the second consecutive year. It was hosted by Joanna Dring and Paul Pyke, who are the leads for the business’ LGBTQIA+ employee network.
The event started with Jacquie Sutherland, DEI, health and wellbeing consultant at Heineken UK, explaining that employers that embrace DEI can be up to 36% more successful and that being inclusive is business sense.
Members of the UK management team, including Jonathan Ford, off-trade sales director, James Crampton, corporate affairs director, and Marta Martins Pinto, people director, spoke about the importance of fairness and how to provide the right environment for everyone to flourish in their own way.
The leads of each of Heineken’s employee networks, which cover race and ethnicity, gender, age, LGBTQIA+ and disability, spoke about their successes to date. These include the Enable team’s launch of a neurodiversity toolkit, the Reaching Across Cultures and Ethnicities team’ work to help recruit young black talent, and the Women and Allies network orchestrating new family-friendly policies for parents and carers and advocating for more women in senior leadership positions.
Other achievements included the Advancing Generational Equity network introducing a social mobility employer index and Heineken Open and Proud highlighting Pride events held in the offices and its video series ‘Looking for a Straight Answer’.
Martins Pinto said: “Over the last few years we have made huge steps forward as [we] strive to be the most inclusive pub, beer and cider business. Our employee networks have done fantastic work in helping to bring all our staff on our journey and what better way to take stock of everything that’s been achieved and look to the future than to celebrate with a show dedicated to DEI. The relaxed and engaging approach of the townhall meant it was easy for people to watch, and hopefully reflect on what we can all do to be better allies.”
