Equality
Crane is founded upon the principles of equality, honesty, fairness, and justice, which are clearly core to the R.T. Crane Resolution. This strong foundation has enabled our inclusive and high-performance culture that we are proud of, and has been a critical driver of our long-term success. Our culture fosters trust and mutual respect at all levels of the organization, beginning with our Board of Directors and the senior management team. We believe that diversity of experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds ultimately brings better leadership, ideas, and stakeholder considerations to enhance growth in all respects. We seek a workforce that reflects the communities in which we operate and one that is as diverse as our businesses.
EQUALITY HIGHLIGHT: THE CRANE CULTURE—
EQUALITY, DIVERSITY, AND INCLUSION TRAINING
We believe that our focus on diversity and inclusion will continue to enhance our culture and build upon the great foundation we already have in place. Driven by the Crane Business System’s continuous improvement focus, we are always looking for ways to better put our values into action. Crane took a big step in this direction with the development and roll-out of our own internal “Culture & Equality” training workshops for all associates which began in 2021 and continued into 2022.
Rather than promoting an off-the-shelf commercially available solution, we developed a specialized and unique training to emphasize and promote the best aspects of Crane’s culture, with a focus on how it is critical to attract and retain top talent. We believe that taking this customized, in-house approach to training, with all workshops led by Crane management rather than third parties, is critical to properly conveying the importance of this initiative.
The targeted outcomes for these workshops, which we believe we achieved successfully, were to:
- Raise awareness of the overarching Crane culture and our deep history.
- Orient all attendees to Leadership at Crane.
- Demonstrate that the tone is set from the top with the welcome message from Max Mitchell (our CEO) and Tami Polmanteer (our CHRO), and establish Presidents, Site Leaders, and HR Leaders as “owners” who truly believe in building on our culture to enhance inclusion to achieve diversity.
- Discuss the principles of promoting inclusion and what Crane is already doing to achieve this.
- Engage each team in self-reflection and a team-based assessment to gauge where they are today in terms of
promoting inclusion. - Leverage the self-assessment to establish commitments for becoming even more inclusive.
The response to these workshops was overwhelmingly positive; associates enjoyed the rich discussions and breakout activities, and—as a secondary benefit—getting to know their colleagues outside of their typical roles. Following the workshops, every business unit and regional team created diversity, equity, and inclusion commitments that demonstrated an eagerness to continue this work.
We recognize that a workshop of this importance cannot be a one-off event if we expect to achieve long-term results. To build upon the momentum from the original workshops conducted, we plan to execute a cycle of consistent and continuous reinforcement of the messaging. Based on this, these workshops will be scheduled to occur every 16–18 months within our businesses for all Crane associates.
