OUR ASSOCIATES
Workplaces that Welcome and Inspire
We want every associate to thrive and be able to achieve their best work within a culture that welcomes, listens, embraces everyone, and creates opportunity for all. A culture built on strong values and ethics: integrity, respect, quality, and reliability.
We value our associates’ wide variety of backgrounds and the incredible innovation that comes from different perspectives.
We’re committed to helping our associates thrive, both personally and professionally.
Associate Education
Education is key to both personal growth and career development, and we are proud to have helped further our people’s learning throughout our history. Launched in 2008 as part of our Green for Good program, our education efforts in El Salvador, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic have sponsored and enrolled thousands of our manufacturing associates in high school and higher education programs. To date, more than 3,600 associates, mostly sewing machine operators, have earned their high school degrees and hundreds more have participated in college or post-graduate programs. Recently, we expanded the program to over 3,000 associates’ family members to enable broader access to the benefits of this program.
The program has helped people overcome circumstances that prevented them from finishing school while driving huge benefits to our business, including improved skills and productivity, reduced turnover, and overall associate satisfaction.
To help our associates grow and thrive around the globe, we offer a wide range of other educational opportunities. We’ve created our HBI University online education portal, offering over 1,000 leadership and training courses to 8,000 associates in multiple languages and e-learning formats, with topics such as business, textiles, finance and leadership. In 2023, our associates invested nearly 11,000 hours in our broad range of HBI University courses.
Associate Education
Education is key to both personal growth and career development, and we are proud to have helped further our associates’ learning throughout our history. Launched in 2008 as part of our Green for Good program, our education efforts in El Salvador, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic have sponsored and enrolled thousands of our manufacturing associates in high school and higher education programs. To date, more than 3,600 associates, mostly sewing machine operators, have earned their high school degrees and hundreds more have participated in college or post-graduate programs. Recently, we expanded the program to over 3,000 associates’ family members to enable broader access to the benefits of this program.
The program has helped people overcome circumstances that prevented them from finishing school while driving huge benefits to our business, including improved skills and productivity, reduced turnover, and overall associate satisfaction.
To help our associates grow and thrive around the globe, we offer a wide range of other educational opportunities. We’ve created our HBI University online education portal, offering over 1,000 leadership and training courses to 8,000 associates in multiple languages and e-learning formats, with topics such as business, textiles, finance and leadership. In 2023, our associates invested nearly 11,000 hours in our broad range of HBI University courses.
Health and Wellness
We consider it vital that we support our associates’ health and wellness needs and have created many tools and resources to help – promoting physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
From a state-of-the-art wellness center at our Winston-Salem, North Carolina headquarters to clinics staffed by doctors and/or nurses at nearly all global facilities, we have understood the importance of supporting our associates’ healthcare needs for decades. These global programs differ by geography but often include:
- Prevention programs that focus on early detection of chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension
- Annual physicals
- Significant support for expecting and new mothers and other “Wellness for Her” programs to support women’s health
- Biometric screenings to assess associates’ health journeys and support their long-term health goals
- Vaccine programs
- Health fairs for associates’ families
Health and Wellness
We consider it vital that we support our associates’ health and wellness needs and have created many tools and resources to help – promoting physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
From a state-of-the-art wellness center at our Winston-Salem, North Carolina headquarters to clinics staffed by doctors and/or nurses at nearly all global facilities, we have understood the importance of supporting our associates’ healthcare needs for decades. These global programs differ by geography but often include:
- Prevention programs that focus on early detection of chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension
- Annual physicals
- Significant support for expecting and new mothers and other “Wellness for Her” programs to support women’s health
- Biometric screenings to assess associates’ health journeys and support their long-term health goals
- Vaccine programs
- Health fairs for associates’ families
Our Health Clinics
We want to focus on wellness first and have a healthcare system that offers first-class medical services to our associates worldwide.
Our team of medical practitioners treat facility-level associates across the globe. In Latin America, our medical team includes nearly 30 doctors and 30 nurses who provide 90,000 medical consultations each year.
These medical teams also drive preventive care and educational campaigns at our facilities to help combat a range of health issues at their early stages.
Healthcare services are not limited to our associates. Each year, our human resources department and medical clinics organize health fairs where more than10,000 free-of-charge medical consultations are provided to the families of our associates – mainly their children. We also provide health brigades in our local communities which offer free consultations to thousands of people in the community.
Future Moms Club
We have created a Future Moms Club, which supports expecting and new mothers in our plants with a variety of special benefits, including:
- Workshops for mothers and their partners on pregnancy and postpartum mother and baby care
- Preferential cafeteria lines and seating
- Access to designated facilities, such as breastfeeding rooms
- A support network of other Future Moms Club members
Since its creation in 2016, our Future Moms Club has supported more than 2,000 women in El Salvador, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic. By educating and nurturing our associates during pregnancy and beyond, the program promotes social inclusion, gender equality, and a supportive work environment. By easing the transition between maternity leave and eventual return to the workplace, we’ve been able to boost associate engagement, productivity and retention.
We also launched a Future Dads Club in El Salvador, where fathers are trained on the important task of supporting the full development and health of mothers and babies.
Our Future Moms Club inspired the El Salvador nonprofit group FUNDEMAS to honor us, while the Mexican nonprofit group CEMEFI recognized the club for promoting “quality of life in the company.”