A winning culture and having the majority of staff aligned with company values has seen Frucor Beverages New Zealand recognised as an Aon Hewitt Best Employer. The annual awards, presented by global human resources consultancy Aon Hewitt, acknowledge a company’s commitment to their employees by measuring workplace culture and practises.
This is the fourth time Frucor New Zealand has achieved this award since 2011. The accreditation process involving three stages – an employee engagement survey, a people practices inventory and an organisational audit.
Frucor New Zealand CEO, Mark Callaghan says fostering an engaged workplace culture has consistently been a focus for the Frucor leadership team. “We’re passionate about what we do at Frucor. We love the drinks we make and we have even defined our purpose as ‘a Hunger for Making Drinks Better’. That’s for our consumers, our customers and our people – we really do care. Without question, people come first in everything we do… we do give a damn. We are committed to providing our people with the freedom to create, push the boundaries and in our language, to spark action ‘to go for it.’ Our values and culture are what set us apart which is why our engagement survey and feedback mechanisms are so critical to our winning mind set,” he says.
Frucor New Zealand’s employee engagement scores have increased year-on-year, a nod to the hard work the company continues to put into their people. The results of the company’s 2015 staff engagement survey show that 89% of Frucor New Zealand’s staff are proud to be associated with the company, with 82% feeling encouraged to suggest new ideas to improve the way things are done at Frucor.
It’s areas such as these, as well as working with great brands, having a laugh and being part of a supportive team that Frucor’s longest serving employees say they love about working for the drinks manufacturer.
Out of 702 New Zealand staff, 20% have worked at Frucor for more than ten years and 20 staff have reached significant milestones of more than 20 years of service.
Ted Audain first started at Frucor in the manufacturing department in 1980 and this year marks his 35th year with the company. “The environment is great to develop skills which you would normally obtain by working at a number of different companies. Frucor’s values and culture support the staff to be physically and mentally safe,” he says.
Frucor New Zealand, which manufactures household brands such as Just Juice, V and h2go was accredited as a Best Employer in 2015 along with 15 other companies across New Zealand and Australia.
About Frucor
Since its beginnings in the early 1960’s as part of the New Zealand Apple & Pear Board, Frucor has evolved from a small local juice business to a significant international beverages company, with 1000 staff and annual revenue of NZ$500 million. Frucor exports approximately NZ$250 million of beverages a year, roughly equivalent to a quarter of New Zealand’s total annual wine industry exports. Since 2009 Frucor has been wholly owned by leading Japanese beverage and food company Suntory Group.
