George Weston Foods

Agricultural & Horticultural

Life at GWF

Career Opportunities

We offer a broad range of career expansion opportunities across our diverse businesses including role changes and promotions, special assignments, secondments and project work. We also offer international opportunities through our UK parent company Associated British Foods plc. We actively work with our people to understand what drives their careers and we empower them to drive their development.

Communications

We share information and insights to help our people understand our company’s strategy and performance. We encourage two-way communication, with lots of opportunities to provide regular feedback and share ideas about making GWF a better place to work eg team briefings, people surveys and ‘town halls’.

Talent and Succession

It is important we plan for the future of our business by managing succession and identifying emerging talent. We aim to have open and transparent conversations with our people to allow them to develop and manage their career aspirations. We look for challenging experiences and development which can increase their overall capability and meet the needs of our business.

Leaders

We support leaders to grow and develop by offering coaching and mentoring programs to build leadership capability, assessment and feedback using the LifeStyle Inventory (LSI) and Hogan tools, and leadership conferences. Our operating model relies on our leaders building strong, diversified networks throughout the ABF and GWF businesses.

Development

We believe in equipping people with core skills, knowledge and tools to be successful in their roles. This includes development in competencies, behaviours, technical & functional skills and leadership; and development opportunities such as on-the-job experiences, coaching and training. We believe most development occurs on the job, however, GWF subsidises the cost of external studies for approved courses as well as study leave.

Diversity

We believe in the value of an inclusive and diverse workforce that reflects our diverse customers, consumers and communities. Inclusion unlocks the power of our diverse teams enabling us to better understand and serve customers, attract top talent and innovate successfully.  We aim to provide a positive barrier-free recruitment process and a supportive workplace where everyone can be their best. If you are applying for a role and require workplace adjustments due to a disability, please let us know.  GWF is proud to be a gold member of the Australian Network on Disability.

Community

We are active supporters of the communities in which we operate, as well as encourage our people to become involved in community giving. GWF shares expertise, skills and resources and creates partnerships that have a positive impact on our wider communities including a major partnership with Foodbank and support for KidsCan in New Zealand.

Our Benefits

Recognition

We know that recognising our people plays a big part in their passion, commitment, performance and connection to the business. We want to drive a culture where we recognise and thank our people for their efforts and role modelling the GWF values of Safe, Courageous, Trusting and Collaborative.

Employee Assistance Program

We are partnering with Benestar because we value our people and are dedicated to their health and wellbeing. We encourage our people to leverage professional, confidential coaching and support through MyCoach. Our people have access to the BeneHub to explore topics around holistic wellbeing through a variety of content such as learning modules, videos, articles, blogs, podcasts, self-assessments and resource kits.

Remuneration

Our reward philosophy recognises high performers who achieve business results and live our values through ‘what they do and how they do it’. Market competitive salary packages that pay for performance.

KiwiSaver and Insurance

Additional benefits via GWF’s KiwiSaver Fund, ie Income Protection and Life Insurance at no cost for salaried people and available for purchase for weekly paid people.

Flexible work

We are committed to providing a work environment in which employees can perform at their best and are motivated and satisfied at work. We aim to support high performance and retain our people by allowing them to balance their work with important personal commitments such as family, study or community involvement.

• Compressed work week and rostered day off arrangements
• Personal leave, compassionate leave
• Phased return for parents returning from parental leave
• Job share and telecommuting
• Alternative shifts to meet the needs of changing family circumstances
• Opportunity for people to rotate through different positions and tasks in the plant in line with their capability

Development with GWF

At GWF, we are strongly committed to the development of our people’s skills and careers.

At GWF. we strive to equip our people with core skills, knowledge, and tools to be successful in their role. To do this, we ensure that development opportunities are available and focused on three areas:

• Technical
• Functional
• Leadership

We encourage our people to own their learning, and our leaders are expected to guide and enable learning.

Your development at GWF will occur through career-building training.

Technical

Flour Milling training, formerly known as NABIM (National Association of British Irish & Millers), each year we run our development training to provide millers with essential knowledge and understanding of the flour milling industry. Each year the courses are studied by hundreds of students from around the world and lead to the Advanced Certificate in Flour Milling.

Functional

We have a variety of functional training opportunities in Sales, Finance, Operations, Quality and Human Resources targeted to develop our business partnering capability.

Leadership

We recognise the importance of developing our leadership capability at GWF. We provide leadership development programs for those with existing people management responsibility and targeted programmes for those who have been identified as potential future leaders. These programs focus on personal growth for the leaders as well as equipping them with the skills to lead others and drive business results.

Diversity & Inclusion

Everyday Moments of Goodness isn’t just a slogan for George Weston Foods, it’s a purpose that’s brought to life through its values and the way team members are encouraged to act each day.

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George Weston Foods has three bakeries around the country and is responsible for producing much of the bread eaten in New Zealand, including the Tip Top Bakery brand.

The organisation’s values are Safe, Courageous, Trusting and Collaborative, and its EMOG (Everyday Moments of Goodness) programme was introduced to encourage employees to recognise and celebrate those moments in each other’s behaviour.

People and Performance Business Partner Solary Ha says, “We bring Everyday Moments of Goodness to life every day through our language, role modelling, our values and the way we act every day. We are encouraged to act as if we are owners of the business through our behaviours.”

An Inclusion and Diversity Taskforce is headed by the General Manager Baking Division Mark Bosomworth and the business strives to foster inclusive teams through education and supportive initiatives. The taskforce is made up of representatives from across the business and has developed an inclusion strategy and a number of initiatives, all designed to create an environment that embodies its vision of ‘Everyone belongs, everyone is valued, and everyone has equal opportunity’.

Feedback from staff highlighted that flexibility was valued for the way it helped with navigating work and home life, and the organisation’s leave policy was relaunched to take this into account.

In addition to topping up the Government’s paid parental leave by an additional 12 weeks, key changes were made to the parental leave policy, including paying the employer contribution to Kiwisaver during unpaid parental leave for up to 40 weeks, and offering one paid day off work each week for 12 weeks following a return from parental leave.

In 2020 the organisation partnered with The Learning Wave to offer Winning at Wiri, a 12-week course for frontline workers at its Wiri site. More than 13 nationalities are represented at the site and English is often an additional language.

“This programme provided essential literacy skills to our frontline employees. The purpose of this programme was to enhance the engagement of our people, driving a culture of pride, personal ownership and accountability, as well as provide our frontline employees with the understanding, skills and confidence to work towards acting like ‘owners of the business’,” Mark Bosomworth says.

By championing its purpose and values, George Weston Foods is committed to pro-actively stamping out bullying and harassment.

“We encourage all employees across our organisation to role model our values, which includes being courageous to speak up when we see behaviours displayed not in line with our values and being committed to building trusting relationships across the organisation.”

The commitment to creating Everyday Moments of Goodness goes beyond the workplace and into the organisation’s communities. Employees are offered the chance to volunteer at approved community organisations two days a year, and through a partnership with KidsCan more than 100,000 loaves of bread are donated to schools.

“This is a great way to bring our teams together to collaborate to improve our community, and also ensure we are sharing our products and nourishing kids in New Zealand.”

Awards

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