Caring for Our People: A Look at Gildan's 2019 Sustainability Highlights
Gildan recently announced the release of its 2019 ESG report, highlighting the progress made by the Company towards fulfilling their vision of Making Apparel Better®. An essential part of achieving this vision rests on Gildan’s Genuine Responsibility® program, which has been designed around three core pillars. Today, Gildan focuses on the first pillar, Caring for Our People, as the Company looks back on some of its 2019 highlights.
Caring for People captures one of Gildan’s top priorities: to provide employees with safe and rewarding workplaces while empowering them to succeed. To do this, Gildan fosters a proactive approach to workplace safety and employee welfare by practicing industry-leading labour standards while providing workers with added benefits, including personal and professional development programs, access to free onsite medical clinics, subsidized meals, free transportation, and a global ergonomics program.
2019 Highlights
As of last year, 96% of Gildan’s global employee-base was represented by formal Health and Safety committees, and throughout 2019, the Company continued to make investments into onsite healthcare initiatives, including enhancing employees’ access to medical care with the opening of a new Comprehensive Health and Wellness Centre in Honduras. In total, Gildan provided employees with over 195,000 free onsite medical consultations in 2019.
Beyond lending support to employees through healthcare, Gildan also continued to empower them with well-rounded growth opportunities by providing over 2.5 million hours of training in areas of both personal and professional development. In total, the Company’s investments in supplemental employee benefits amounted to USD $13.9 million in 2019 alone.
In addition to this, Gildan’s Social Compliance program was reaccredited last year by the Fair Labor Association (FLA), which came after an extensive two-year review of the Company’s practices and policies that are in place to ensure fair labour practices across its global supply chain.
To learn more about how Gildan fulfilled its pillar of Caring for People in 2019, read the complete ESG report here.
