World Day for Safety and Health: A Look Into Gildan - Seite 3

Esther: Every day we work to continue strengthening this culture of H&S - understanding workers' needs and including them in decision-making processes about H&S-related initiatives. For instance, the knowledge that we gained from successfully obtaining the ISO 45001 certification at our sewing facilities in the Dominican Republic through worker-management collaboration is immensely useful as we move forward with achieving this certification in the facilities of the rest of our regions.

How does Gildan communicate its H&S efforts with a workforce this large?

Mike: H&S's importance is reinforced through every touchpoint on the factory floor, whether it be through formal announcements, updates from leaders, programs, digital communications, and much more.

Recently, we also collaborated with our communications team to identify the main messages we wanted to reinforce globally; these messages are:

• Lead: Leadership leads the way in safety, setting the standard for accountability, commitment, and compliance.
• Empower: Empower and educate yourself and others to create a safe and healthy workplace.
• Act: Every action counts. Act to prevent incidents, report safety concerns, and suggest safety improvements to contribute to a safer work environment.

From there, we built a comprehensive brand and communications platform that would apply to every single H&S touchpoint and rolled out the brand across all H&S initiatives. By doing this, we brought H&S under one roof to have a bigger impact. In addition, this rebrand sent a clear message to all Gildan employees that communicating, empowering, and reinforcing H&S practices across our business is a priority.

In addition to Occupational H&S, what are some other notable H&S measures Gildan takes?

Esther: Our commitment to H&S goes much beyond the workplace. In addition to ensuring occupational H&S, we provide our employees with the support they need to lead fulfilling lives. For instance, our facilities in Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Bangladesh are equipped with on-site health clinics. With healthcare being challenging to access in some of these regions, these on-site clinics provide workers with convenient access to medical services and professionals.