ESG Report
Wellness
Our vision is to create a global culture of health
We are advancing our vision of creating a global culture of health, where our people and their families can prioritize mental and physical wellbeing through informed, active participation in health and wellness activities. Empowering our locations to determine the best wellness initiatives based on employee needs, sharing their successes globally, and recognizing their achievements are the cornerstones of our culture of wellness.
Our goal is to have active wellness programs at 100% of our facilities globally by 2025.
Achieving Our Vision for Wellness
We provide ongoing support for and development of local wellness programs, in order to:
- Foster greater employee engagement in the process;
- Provide a mechanism for active disease management;
- Reduce the incidence of chronic diseases among our people;
- Increase worker productivity;
- Provide ways for our people’s families to become involved and educated;
- Keep our people healthy and productive; and
- Improve quality of life after retirement.
Our approach to wellness is based on our Four Wellness Absolutes – nutrition, exercise, health screenings and mindfulness/stress management – that research identified as key to our people's overall well-being. Every wellness program and tool we offer addresses one or more of these absolutes to help our people benefit from lifestyle improvements.
Each of our sites is encouraged to have a wellness committee, program and champion to communicate our wellness messages and implement the various global, regional and local programs. The corporate PPG Wellness Council and the Wellness Subcommittee to our corporate Sustainability Committee set the overall strategy and track our progress globally.
Guiding our sites to wellness excellence and recognizing superior performance is the following suite of tools:
- Global Wellness Council: We formed a team of enthusiastic employees to make up our Global Wellness Council. Meeting monthly, the group is focused on developing wellness resources, sharing leadership responsibilities and cascading expectations to teams.
- Wellness Culture of Health Catalog and Program Strategy: This collection of wellness programs offered at our sites around the world allows our people to share successful ideas and describe how best to implement them. The catalog features sections for each of the Four Wellness Absolutes. Program examples include the hydration challenge (nutrition), stretching sessions (exercise), know your numbers (health screenings) and massage therapy (mindfulness/stress management).
- Wellness Scorecard: Our sites can register their wellness activities and track progress over time using our Wellness Scorecard, providing accountability through visibility. A point value is assigned for each wellness program offered, such as weight-loss challenges, health screenings, fitness classes and better sleep programs. In 2021, approximately 67% of our locations achieved the highest level – diamond – on the annual scorecard even while continuing business operations during the pandemic, an increase of over 50% compared to 2020.
- Wellness Awards: This annual recognition is based on the number of points a site earns on the Wellness Scorecard in each calendar year and is part of PPG’s global Sustainability Awards. In addition, many regions offer locally tailored programs, which can include gifts or other recognition for wellness activities.
- Wellness Communications Tools: In addition to fostering ongoing dialogue with employees about wellness, we created a dedicated wellness email alias that gives PPG People improved, dedicated support for wellness programs and launched an intranet site specific to global Wellness resources.
Our Employee Resource Networks (ERNs) are uniquely poised to have a direct impact on our wellness initiatives. Intended to provide employees of diverse backgrounds with a greater voice and more pathways for connection and understanding, many ERNs have stepped up over the past year to provide webinars and other resources to ensure wellbeing and belonging for a number of employees.
A critical component of wellness is mental health. We recognize that the last two years precipitated dramatically different work and home experiences for our employees, many of whom continue to juggle new and expanded responsibilities. To meet the evolving needs of our employees, we developed and offered new mental health initiatives, including enhancing our Employee Assistance Program (EAP) resources globally, increasing visibility of EAP resources and providing wellbeing materials to support employees and their families.
Moving forward, we will continue to improve platforms for wellness challenges, increase sharing of regional and local best practices, and deploy an enhanced health and wellness catalog, with the intent to drive further participation and track effective programs that better reach our employees' and their families' needs.
Promoting a healthy mind with the Abilities First ERN
In 2021, our Abilities First Employee Resource Network (AFN) hosted a webcast for Mental Health Awareness month focused on stress, anxiety, and other mental health conditions.
The webcast featured Dr. Alicia Kaplan, an Allegheny Health Network psychiatrist who specializes in the treatment of anxiety and related stress conditions. She highlighted the impact that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has had on individuals worldwide, and shared coping strategies for those experiencing stress and anxiety due to return-to-work protocols or assimilating to "normal" social interactions.
The webcast also featured discussions from PPG employees across the world from multiple business units and functions, including Aerospace, Architectural Coatings, Corporate Law and Compliance and Data Management Operations.
Panelists discussed their own experiences ranging from anxiety to postpartum depression and multiple personality disorders. They encouraged listeners to remove the stigma associated with mental illness and create an accepting culture – inside and outside of PPG – in which those struggling with mental health conditions can be treated with the same inclusivity as individuals with physical disorders.
"This isn't easy to do, but this conversation is going to have ripple effects. My hope is that this is the first of many conversations like this we can have across PPG."
Marvin Mendoza
PPG Global Head, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
A holistic approach to health and wellness in Brazil
During ever-evolving times, we continue to take on a holistic approach to our employees' wellness by providing resources that support the physical and emotional care of each employee.
Our Brazil facility recently launched the "+ Health and Wellness," initiative for employees and their families to access holistic care for physical and mental health.
As part of the initiative, a mobile application enables employees to schedule appointments with a family doctor who provides support for their physical, mental and social wellbeing. Appointments are virtual, with free services to employees and for a small charge for family members.
A second application focuses on mental and emotional health through chats, audio recordings and exercises to alleviate or prevent anxiety, depression and burnout. By responding to a quick survey, PPG employees and their families can receive personalized guidance.
"Even if we are physically healthy, we can't just leave our emotional problems at home when we come in to work. Besides being employees we are fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters. You can't separate one part of us from another."
Patricia Pires
PPG senior people operations specialist, Latin America South
Promoting physical activity with Cycling Months
In 2021, one of our most successful wellness events was "Cycling Months" in Lewkowiec, Poland, which took place from May to August. To encourage physical activity, the facility offered every employee who cycled to work ten times within each month a gift card to EMPIK, a shop with books, music and movies. The initiative was well-received: in July 2021, 31% of local employees participated in cycling month, and many participants reported weight loss and accomplishment from cycling to work. Their efforts likely also reduced employees' individual carbon footprints while not using traditional combustion engines to commute.