Graham Packaging received the 2021 Ethics In Business award at Samaritan Counseling Center’s 14th annual awards banquet on Thursday, July 22.
Graham Packaging is an international leader in the design, manufacture and sale of custom, value-added and sustainable food, beverage, household and automotive containers. The company’s headquarters are located in West Hempfield Township, and it produces more than 16 billion container units annually.
Lisa Santin, executive vice president of human resources at Graham, accepted the award at the July 22 event and expressed her gratitude for the process and the opportunity to be chosen as the award recipient.
“Through this process, we’ve learned a lot about ourselves. We’ve learned that there’s things we do really well; there’s things that we could do better; and there’s things that we want to start doing. We learned a great deal, and we’re thrilled with the outcome. Absolutely thrilled,” said Lisa. “This is one of the best awards that we could have won. It underscores Graham’s commitment to our core values, and it really shows that the way that we do business positively impacts the community and our employees.”
She also expressed her appreciation for her team members at the event and those who assisted in the Ethics In Business review, mentioning that they did a lot of work to pull everything together for the review process. In attendance from Graham Packaging in addition to Lisa were Kristin Warfel, Jolie Brown, Lauren Bovard, Kendal Gapinski, Matthew Landis and Anne Jackson.
Prior to the announcement of the award, keynote speaker Jan Bergen, former CEO and president of Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, discussed the ethical opportunities and challenges she faced in her position during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Click here to watch her full keynote address.
The Ethics In Business Process
The 2021 Ethics In Business awards program had five total final nominees: Bomberger’s, Graham Packaging, HairDirect, Lancaster Works and Longview Structures.
The selection of Graham as the award recipient came after the strenuous review process that has been established by Samaritan Counseling Center and its organizational development division known as Samaritan Consulting Group.
The first step of the process includes each nominee providing documents to Samaritan such as financial statements, employee handbooks, organizational charts, and internal communication tools.
The second-step is the administration of a comprehensive online survey that allows employees to provide anonymous feedback about the culture of ethics within the company.
For the third step, trained site visitors conduct half-day in-person or virtual visits with employees from the final nominee organizations.
After all three steps are completed, site visitors use the documents provided, the employee survey and the visit to compile comprehensive reports. An anonymous selection committee of leaders within the Lancaster County business community receives these reports, discusses the nominees and decides on the award recipient. During this year’s selection process, the committee noted that each of the candidates was exceptional and well-qualified for the award.
All five of this year’s nominees were honored at the recent events ceremony at Lancaster Country Club on July 22. At the end of the event, Graham Packaging was announced as the award recipient through a video that showcased its facilities and included employees sharing feedback about the company.
