Sara Lee 2008 Annual Report Download - page 10

8Sara Lee Corporation
Fostering a new culture
Continuous improvement
Sara Lee is becoming
faster, leaner and more
efficient in every aspect
of its business. How?
By constantly looking for
a better way to approach
everything we do. It’s an
ongoing process of taking
non-value-added steps
out of each process,
maintaining cost aware-
ness and challenging the
status quo. At the very
heart of this effort is a
shift in attitude, approach
and practice across the
entire company to a way
of doing business cen-
tered on continuously
improving.
Under one roof
One of the first steps of
our transformation was
to move Sara Lee’s head-
quarters and our North
American businesses
together into one office
building in the western
suburbs of Chicago. The
aim: to fully leverage our
employee talent, promote
high levels of collabora-
tion among people and
departments and, ulti-
mately, foster a new
company culture.
Diversity
At Sara Lee, we are
striving to become a more
diverse and inclusive com-
pany. We’re working across
our global organization
to achieve measurable
diversity and inclusion
objectives in employee
recruitment, retention and
engagement. Because
diversity influences the
richness of our products,
ideas and innovations,
we embrace a culture
where all employees feel
welcomed, connected
and valued – and where
everyone can contribute
in their own unique way
to Sara Lee’s success.
Social responsibility
As a global company,
Sara Lee touches the
lives of millions of people
every day. We work hard
to be a positive, socially
responsible force in the
lives of our employees,
consumers, customers
and communities – a
responsibility we take
very seriously. Doing the
right thing in everything
we do is deeply embed-
ded in Sara Lee’s culture
and business operations.
Sustainability
Sara Lee is committed
to promoting wellness
and nutrition, supporting
our communities, and
protecting our planet.
Sustainability is one of
the ways we are able
to deliver on our values.
To help us continue to
make progress, we’re
reaching out – to con-
sumers, customers,
investors, employees and
our communities. You
can read more about our
program and initiatives in
our sustainability report
“Reaching Out,” which is
available on our Web site,
www.saralee.com.
you will – has changed as well. Living and breathing
our values every day, our people around the world
work as teams, act with integrity, are inclusive, use
their imagination and, most important of all, have
the passion to excel. All this makes every single
one of our 44,000 employees essential in realizing
our vision to be the first choice of consumers and
customers around the world, because they are the
ones who make things happen every day.
In addition to the very tangible improvements we
have made at Sara Lee over the past few years,
from focusing our portfolio to reinvigorating our inno-
vation pipeline, there is one crucial aspect of the new
Sara Lee that is a bit more difficult to put your finger
on: the new culture that has emerged at our company.
During the process of moving from a decentralized
holding company to an integrated operating company,
the culture – the corporate DNA of the company, if