Promote Diverse and Inclusive Culture to Maximize Joy and Connection

In Suntory, we are committed to pursue initiatives to ensure that the workplace is somewhere where people with diverse backgrounds feel welcomed, and that different perspectives are respectfully heard. In Thailand, we have a diverse workforce, consisting of employees from Myanmar, Cambodia, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Japan, Vietnam, Italy, Philippines, and Sweden which creates a vibrant environment of inclusiveness and will allow us to leverage on our diversity and made an impact in Suntory.

We also celebrated International Women’s Day through this year’s theme - #BreakTheBias, we encouraged our Suntorians to wear PURPLE as the colour signifies justice and dignity. To increase awareness on this significant subject matter, we distributed a small token of love to each and every one in our office while we also struck the #BreakTheBias pose. More importantly, selected female representatives from each function were invited for a roundtable and lunch with our female leader to discuss and share ideas on women power and how we can all contribute in breaking the bias in our every day lives.

As Pride is one aspect of our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion framework, we celebrated Suntory Pride and created awareness on DEI a little more than usual in the month of June. We celebrate Pride Month 2022 under the theme, “Everyone is Beautiful in their Own Way” with the objective to celebrate and embrace the beauty of our uniqueness despite the difference in our background and physical appearances. With the believe that makeup is a form of expression and a type of art, we held an enjoyable makeup lesson by Madame Pam, Thailand’s famous makeup Guru, to share make up tips and tricks to our employees. We wrapped up the event with a mini CSR event which we called “Real Beauty You Can Share” by encouraging our employees to bring in their expired cosmetics which we collected in order to donate them to Siriraj Hospital. Moreover, in order to increase our employees’ awareness on this subject, we invited the famous and successful LGBT hosts of the well-known Travel and Lifestyle television show, Toey Tiew Thai, for the “Bite Sized Learning” on in the topic of “Acceptance of LGBTQ in Workplace and Working with Yatte Minahare Spirit” where they shared their thoughts and personal experiences on they paved their road to success. We also broadcasted the session to our employees in the factory to ensure they do not miss the opportunity to participate in this fulfilled and knowledgeable session.

However, DEI is not just a box to check but it’s an ongoing priority and is a journey. We are constantly and enthusiastically promoting DEI through various approaches starting from our recruitment process, education, supporting open communication, engagement activities and benefits design.

Employee Engagement and Recognition

Suntory recognises the need for inclusion and pushes to promote inclusivity for all of us at the workplace. Inclusivity is more than just being represented; it is about employees and stakeholders having a sense of belonging in Suntory, therefore, our engagement activities are planned with this in mind. We run a variety of internal engagement activities all year long to ensure that we can capture the interest of employees with different values. In addition to the traditional activities such as New Year Party, Chinese New Year, Songkran Festival, Offsite Meetings, Recognition Day, we also celebrate International Dog’s Day, Hug Your Cat Day, World’s Ozone Day, Friendship Day and many more! We have also launched Suntory’s Master Chef activity where our diversified employees were able to reflect and represent their remarkable cultures using our products through their dish!

We believe that our employees know their organization best, and that employees are able to voice out their opinions, we conduct Employee Engagement Surveys annually and, more importantly, we take our the results very seriously. Many business decisions and business strategies are driven by the data and insights received from the survey. We have put together a group of Employee Engagement Champions to work on the opportunities identified from the survey at both the function and the organization level. We have conducted focus groups amongst our employees to ensure we gather the constructive feedback employees at all levels. Appropriate action plans have been put in place and we work very hard with related parties to untangle those identified pain points.

Understanding that effective communication is a building block for engaged employees and successful organizations, we regularly communicate to our employees to ensure employees are consistently informed on the business updates and directions through various channels such as Quarterly Newsletter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Line Official. We also encourage two-way communication by organizing Quarter Townhalls where employees get a chance to directly raise their questions to the management team.

Employee Recognition is something we emphasize on as we trust that it is a secret ingredient to employee engagement. We have launched different programs to show our appreciation, acknowledge employees’ efforts and accomplishments that support organization goals, such as Coffee with CEO for employees in the Bangkok Office, Talk with Mat (SVP, Supply Chain) for colleagues in the factories and Happy Hour with Suwan (Commercial Director) for our Indochina friends!

In our attempt to create a culture of recognition as well as to motivate and value each other for our contribution, we have launched our own local ‘Peer to Peer’ recognition program so our employees can recognize, appreciate, and thank each other for big and small achievements. Employees receiving the recognition can collect points and redeem prizes whereas those who submits recognition cards will also receive a small token of gratitude from People and Culture team!

Our focus is on our EMPLOYEES and their WELLNESS

Employee Wellness has always been our priority and will continue to be in all the years to come. We provide an attractive Health and Wellness benefits to our employees and we make every effort to help our employees maintain a work balance that’s right for them. We have introduced Flexible Work Arrangement policies such as issuing recommended meeting guidelines, implemented flexible hours and flexible place policy, revised the flexible benefits scheme where employees are able to spend the given budget based on their personal needs including Dental Care, Vision Care, Fitness & Fitness Equipment, Medical Excess from Insurance Card or even Medical Expenses for Family!



We have also implemented programs like “Happy Hour” once a month where work hours end a little earlier than usual for employees to take a break from their work to mingle around and get to know new colleagues. During this monthly event, we find reasons to celebrate, whether it’s celebrating the key milestones, recognitions or just anything that we can to honor the hard work of our employees.

Giving back to the society

At Suntory, we are all about giving back to the society. Our “Annual Bring and Buy” and “One Suntory Walk” are compulsory activities pinned on our yearly calendar. “Bring and Buy” event is an internal flea market for employees to sell and buy products as well as auctions of gifts sponsored by our Management Team. The purpose of such event is to raise money and donations to be donated back to the society. Each year, we donate all the money raised to different charitable organizations. “One Suntory Walk” is the company’s global annual health and wellness program initiated since 2017. This activity not only aims to promote employees’ healthy lifestyle but also contributes $10 for every employee that participates in this event to charity organizations relating to environment such as water and nature conversation.

In addition to the global initiatives, we have also worked with several organizations locally. To build on Suntory’s Group’s promise, "Mizu To Ikiru" promise, we have partnered with Environmental Education Center (EEC); a leading social enterprise dedicated to inspiring environmental consciousness and activism amongst youth and the public. We have associated our Mizuiku Project together with EEC’s KodPaKodTalay project. We organized professional education sessions and Train the Trainer sessions to create awareness, convey the knowledge and inspire the youth in Phuket and Rayong to understand the importance of water, appreciating its value, the probable threats, waste management and creating value from wastes.

Moreover, every year, we partner with PTT and Highway Police in our “Safe Drive” Campaign to give out over 60,000 bottles of Essence of Chicken, our signature product, on main highways during the long New Year or Songkran holidays.