Our People
2021 was the time to clarify our vision for a future where our People First pillar delivers on our promises to Associates.
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Overview
2021 was the time to clarify our vision for a future where our People First pillar delivers on our promises to Associates. In the year prior, our established Total Rewards Philosophy of “Being there when life happens” allowed us to respond to the impacts of COVID-19. We then looked ahead to 2021 as an opportunity to define the priorities across all businesses and to set up a foundation of Shared Services. As a result, our domestic businesses saw record high scores in our Associate Engagement Survey. Below are few of the wins in key areas, but the best is yet to come as we march towards our 2030 CSR Goals.
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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
The focus of our first full year with a DEI Manager was to ensure that we built a foundation to support policies and practices for all. A few highlights:
- Extended benefits for domestic partners
- Expanded benefits to cover transition benefits for our LGBTQ+ Associates
- Developed & began to implement an International DEI Strategy focused on culture, brand, and business initiatives
Our programming focused on building awareness and skills, and taking action, even if that next step is to commit to continued learning (all Associates are encouraged to join us). The goal is to help everyone understand their accountability in becoming allies for underrepresented groups in the workplace.
Educational events include ‘“Transgender & Nonbinary Inclusion Training” by Max Mowitz from One Iowa and André Robert Lee’s viewing of his film documentary “The Road to Justice.” These events allow Associates to explore additional perspectives and learn about the civil rights struggle within the United States.
To drive inclusion, we knew we needed to listen more, so in 2021 we created a benchmark as a part of our Associate Voice Survey that will be used going forward. Introducing our Inclusion Index (we are proud to share that our first year received an 83% favorability rating).
In addition, we also measure the following metrics in relation to our efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion:
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Associate Wellbeing
Being there for our Associates when life happens means being there holistically. We want to ensure that the challenges and celebrations that life brings can be supported from a physical, mental, and financial wellbeing perspective. We were incredibly proud to be able to lead this effort in our Kum & Go businesses with over $2 million dollars of additional wage adjustments for our 5,000 field Associates. Additionally, we launched a quarterly incentive plan ensuring all Kum & Go Associates have the opportunity to share in the success of our organization. For all of our businesses, the impact of COVID-19 continued throughout 2021, and as promised, we were there to support them when they needed us. We provided paid time off for vaccinations, extension of Emergency Leave for those impacted by COVID-19, and the rollout of our first Flexible Work Policy—for our corporate headquarters-based Associates—which provided remote and flexible options to meet the new needs of their lives now.
Below are key metrics that we’ve use to measure Associate engagement and wellbeing.
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Financial Wellness
The pandemic highlighted just how impactful the loss of work, consistent hours, and wages can be on anyone. At Krause Group, we are committed to ensuring all our Associates have the Total Rewards package along with the education and tools that enable them to meet their financial goals, whether that means getting out of debt or retiring early. To support this, several of our businesses have committed to increasing their wages, thus becoming leaders in their respective markets. Across several of our businesses we were able to pay out annual incentives at or above target with additional ad hoc bonuses paid to all US-based Associates in our Kum & Go, Krause+, and Krause Group Shared Services functions.