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Social

The Social pillar of our sustainability strategy embodies our commitment to build a safe, diverse, equal and inclusive workforce focused on customer satisfaction and improving the communities we do business in.

We have continued our focus on developing our social pillar by focusing on our vision and mission for activities in this area. The social pillar of our sustainability strategy recognises the pivotal role of our people and communities in driving long-term sustainable transformation. Our vision is to shape a sustainable future as part of the circular economy while actively supporting and investing in the future of our people and communities. Our mission is to create packaging for good, which is supported by our employee engagement and positively impacting the communities we serve. We contribute to a better world through targeted investments in our people, educational initiatives, recycling and circularity.

BSafe logo

Health and safety

An anchor point of our social pillar is team safety, with the clear objective of each and every employee returning home safe to friends and family every day. Prevention of physical harm and support for mental health and wellbeing are a vital part of our organisational commitments and endorsed by a variety of workplace initiatives.

Our approach to workplace health and safety is exemplified by our BSafe! 7 Programme (BSafe! 7), which is supported by our Environmental, Health and Safety team. BSafe! 7 incorporates training and communications, which covers safety topics including traffic safety, machine intervention and work permits.

We continuously raise awareness of health and safety, the role of protective equipment and need for constant improvement in workplace and procedural safety. All our production facilities implement an accident/injury investigation system, including near-misses, which examine root causes and identifies potential short- and long-term corrective actions, and follow emergency action plans.

We regularly review the effectiveness of BSafe! 7 with internal audits, and elements of our safety management, including policies, planning, implementation and operation, corrective action and timely safety reviews to ensure accountability and the ultimate safety of everyone at AMP.

Human rights

We believe that respecting human rights is fundamental. We are committed to respecting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, and to supporting human rights within our business and across our global supply chain.

We are committed to:

  • Upholding labour standards: adhering to applicable labour laws and regulations in all the countries in which operate, including ensuring that there is no place in our business or supply chain for forced labour, child labour or any other form of human exploitation.
  • Supporting freedom of association: working to promote freedom of association and recognition of the right to collective bargaining.
  • Providing a safe and healthy working environment: understanding that safety at work is a human right and ensuring that we operate safe and healthy workplaces.
  • Environmental management: recognising that human rights extend to the right to a healthy environment, we are committed to sustainable practices that protect our planet.
  • Preventing discrimination: working to combat all forms of discrimination wherever they can be found in our business or supply chain.
  • Respecting civil and political rights: respecting all individual rights including right to freedom of opinion.

Social responsibility within our supply chain

We promote social responsibility throughout our supply chain and expect our suppliers to share in our commitment to social and ethical rights and to doing business in the right way. We expect all our business partners to adhere to the principles and values set out in our Code of Conduct and comply with our Responsible Procurement Policy. This policy sets out our expectation for suppliers, and our supplier requirements are based on the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) Base Code principles. We have implemented a robust risk assessment process, which allows us to identify and address social and ethical risks within our supply chain.

Further information on how we promote social responsibility throughout our supply chain, including in relation to human rights, can be found in our Responsible Procurement Policy, our Human Rights Policy Statement, and our Modern Slavery Statement.

Click here to watch a short video introducing our Responsible Procurement Policy.

Employee engagement

We believe that open dialogue and collaboration are essential to fostering a positive and productive workplace.

To strengthen our connection with employees, we conduct a biannual Global Engagement Survey inviting employees to share feedback and insights. The surveys allow us to understand what’s working well and where we can improve.

Our recent survey saw a high response rate that shows our employees’ commitment to shaping AMP. Based on the survey results, we developed action plans for various teams and follow up on our progress throughout the year to ensure meaningful change. Across our regions, we also engage in ongoing conversations with employee representatives, including Unions and Works Councils, to ensure that all voices are heard and respected.

Listening to our employees

AMP recognises that listening to its employees’ feedback helps to build upon and maintain a company and a culture that attracts, and more importantly, retains talented people. In partnership with Culture Amp, a market-leading employee experience platform, Ardagh launched its first global employee engagement survey in 2022 with a more recent survey taking place in 2024 which received a notable improvement in participation. Action plans are in development across regional operating businesses, facilities and function levels to respond to feedback received in the survey and address areas for improvement.

Employee lifecycle

1
Get talent
  • Branding and attraction
  • Career marketing
  • Assessment and selection
  • Recruitment and hire
2
Onboarding
  • Onboarding
  • Induction
3
Performance management
  • Feedback
  • Objective setting and review
  • Performance review
  • Total rewards (Base salary, Benefits, Bonus, and Incentives)
  • Employee absence support
  • Appreciation and recognition
4
Develop and excel
  • Development plan
  • Skills development (Functional Excellence, coaching and mentoring)
  • Leadership development
  • High potential development
5
Succession and progression
  • Career pathing
  • Talent review
  • Succession planning
  • Mobility
6
Offboarding
  • Retirement
  • Exit interviews
  • Knowledge transfer
  • Alumni
  • Termination

SAP Success Factors supports our employee lifecycle practices and provides employees with access to digital learning resources that are also accessible via mobile device.

Across our regions, we also engage in ongoing conversations with employee representatives, including Unions and Works Councils to ensure that all voices are heard and respected across the organisation.

Training and development

We believe in nurturing our employees’ potential and supporting their professional growth. Our approach focuses on continuous development through regular feedback, personalised development plans and clear goal setting.

Our training and development strategy…

  • We aim to create a competitive advantage at Ardagh Metal Packaging by fostering a strong learning culture and mindset.
  • Focusing on capturing out in-house expertise and combining it with external learning content.
  • We will achieve this by spotting and nurturing out talent, adopting a ‘learning for all’ ethos, developing an intuitive learning academy in myLearning and encouraging collaboration across all regional teams.

This strategy is closely aligned to our business objectives, strategy, HR policies, Behaviours, and Ardagh for Education.

We nurture our employees to grow and be successful in their careers. Our Learning Academies include topics such as: Leadership, Business and People skills, Functional Excellence, Sustainability, Operations and Environmental Health Safety Risk & Compliance.

  • Functional Excellence Academy
  • Leadership Academy
  • Business & People Skills Academy
  • Sustainability Academy
  • Operations Academy
  • Environment, Health Safety, Risk & Compliance Academy

We offer all employees access to a language development programme and a digital library of soft skills development content. In addition, we also offer more targeted technical and role-based training such as project management, lean six sigma, sales and negotiation training, as well as on-the-job training models and early careers programmes (apprenticeships and graduate programmes).

We support our leaders through leadership development programmes, digital/workshop learning activities, assessment and coaching/mentoring opportunities with a focus on targeted training topics such as unconscious bias, respectful workplace training, supervisor training, emotional intelligence and leading difficult conversations.

Managing competency and skills in our teams is important to us. We have created a skills assessment tool to help identify skills gaps to support employees on the development of their technical knowledge and skills.

Our targeted annual individual Personal Development Review (PDR) process supports quality conversations between employees and their managers on how the individual and the business can work together to meet development and career objectives aligned to our business needs and aspirations.

Ardagh for Education

From one generation to the next

We are proud of our manufacturing heritage and expertise. With our Ardagh Behaviours we foster the continued growth of everyone.

As a manufacturer we emphasise STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) education both internally and externally through our Ardagh for Education programme.

Remuneration

Reward principles at Ardagh Group help us in attracting and retaining talented employees who are motivated to develop and grow their careers with us. Our total rewards strategy is to provide competitive compensation packages and we regularly review our salaries in the markets where we operate to ensure we stay competitive. We are dedicated to fostering a culture where equal pay is a fundamental value, and we strive to reflect this in all our systems and processes.

We offer comprehensive incentive and benefit programmes tailored to each employee’s position, location and business level to ensure we offer a compelling employment package to all employees. Reflecting our Core Values of Inclusion, Trust, Teamwork and Excellence, our variable remuneration incentive programmes are designed to motivate employees to achieve key performance indicators that are directly aligned to their role, such as productivity, efficiency, quality and financial performance.

The health and wellbeing of our employees is very important at Ardagh Group. Non-compensation benefits, which may include pension and retirement support, or health and wellbeing provision, are available to all employees. Our benefits encompass several key pillars*, designed to cater for the individual needs of our employees:

  • Cash renumeration
    • Base salary
    • Bonuses and incentives
    • Allowances and cash benefits
  • Working time, leave and holidays
    • Generous core holiday entitlement
    • Additional service holidays to reward loyalty and commitment
    • Enhanced family leave
    • A hybrid working approach for those who can work remotely
  • Retirement planning
    • Pension and retirement funds
    • Provision for ill-health or death
  • Health and wellbeing
    • Medical cover and/or on-site healthcare
    • On-site gym facilities, funding for wellbeing memberships or activities
    • Employee Assistance Programmes
    • Life insurance cover
Appreciation and recognition
*The general benefit pillars are provided for illustration. The composition of remuneration packages for individual employees is influenced by a range of factors including location, role and tenure.

In the U.S. our total rewards offer typically includes:

  • Competitive salary
  • Medical/prescription/dental/vision
  • Pre-tax accounts for qualified health expenses
  • Life and disability
  • 401(k) savings plan
  • Paid time away from work
  • Employee Assistance Programme

We offer comprehensive incentive and benefit programmes tailored to each employee’s position, location and business level to ensure we offer a compelling employment package to all employees. Reflecting our Core Values of Inclusion, Trust, Teamwork and Excellence, our variable remuneration incentive programmes are designed to motivate employees to achieve key performance indicators that are directly aligned to their role, such as productivity, efficiency, quality and financial performance.

For employees globally, depending on location, they may also have access to:

  • Family days, volunteering days.
  • Free or subsidised meals
  • Opportunities to celebrate individual and team successes, or important personal life events

Gender pay gap reports

UK gender pay gap report 2024 (PDF 219 KB) UK gender pay gap report 2023 (PDF 205 KB) UK gender pay gap report 2022 (PDF 357 KB) UK gender pay gap report 2021 (PDF 216 KB) UK gender pay gap report 2020 (PDF 156 KB) UK gender pay gap report 2019 (PDF 307 KB)

Community

We’re building a culture of sustainability by embedding environmentally friendly practices into our daily operations. To deliver impactful programmes in our local communities we established a network of Social Sustainability Ambassadors. This global network continues to strengthen engagement with our local communities, meeting regularly to share stories, inspirations and best practice.

We aspire to deliver at least one meaningful community involvement project (CIP) at every location annually. The impact of the CIPs can be amplified by financial contributions from a charity donation fund held by each of our locations. CIPs are focused on three leading causes:

Education

The mission of Ardagh for Education is to give back to the communities we operate in through high-quality Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education.

Recycling and circular economy

Supporting a circular economy not only aligns with our environmental responsibilities but also underscores our role as leaders in sustainable packaging.

Biodiversity

We protect biodiversity by using eco-friendly materials and innovative designs in our sustainable packaging solutions. We strive to ensure that nature and industry coexist harmoniously.