Growing a Culture of Inclusion at Glico

Scale

5000+ employees

Reach

18 programs
12 countries
5 languages

Impact

Participants say they feel more equipped and confident rolling out inclusion initiatives with their teams.

Ezaki Glico, commonly known as Glico, is a Japanese food processing company with more than 5,000 employees around the world. They produce and sell confectionery products (most famously the Pocky brand of coated biscuit sticks) in more than 30 countries. Glico is motivated and committed to make diversity and inclusion a fundamental cornerstone of their organization in a way that is culturally and locally relevant, while ensuring global consistency.

Glico Logo

Challenge

Glico’s aim is to become an inclusive organization where every employee feels included and valued, and can work cohesively to produce positive results. To that end, they wanted every member of their staff to develop an understanding of unconscious bias and develop skills to address it in the workplace.

Solution

During their inaugural company-wide Diversity and Inclusion Week, we facilitated unconscious bias trainings in Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Bahasa, and English for hundreds of employees per session. Participants gained a deeper understanding of different unconscious bias models, relevant research and data, how bias shows up at work, and best practices for mitigating bias in the workplace. Following Diversity and Inclusion Week, we conducted inclusive leadership sessions for more than 150 leaders covering barriers to inclusion, micro-inequities and micro-affirmations, and how to utilize our inclusion assessment, the Inclusive Behaviors InventorySM, to develop inclusive behaviors. We were part of their Diversity and Inclusion Week again the following year, facilitating workshops in five languages on inclusive communication.

Results

Glico reports that these trainings helped employees heighten their awareness of bias, move past key barriers for inclusion, and connect unconscious bias concepts with everyday examples relevant to their local context. Employees also learned how to demonstrate inclusive communication. Glico leaders developed a deeper understanding of how micro-inequities harm team engagement and performance, and are now equipped with skills for creating inclusive environments.

Equip your workforce with the skills to address their biases.