Essential Workers
Core Values
SERVICE
We win when we help others.
We are willing servants. We are sensitive to needs and are eager to be a resource to everyone around us, being generous with our time, talent and energy.
TRUST
We excel when we assume the best in each other.
Mutual respect and an open, honest environment mark our interactions with others. We acknowledge each other’s contributions, we practice active listening, and we deliver on our promises.
RESPONSIBILITY
We succeed when we balance our freedom to act with a sense of accountability.
We invest deeply in creativity, autonomy and the willingness to take risks. We recognize these investments bear the greatest fruit when exercised within a framework of disciplined boundaries.
INTEGRITY
We thrive when we do the right thing.
We believe there are enduring principles for everything we do and we strive, in our words and deeds, to meet or exceed those standards.
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
We prosper when we learn, understand, and improve.
We create opportunities for human talent to thrive. We share what we’ve learned. We apply the lessons we learn every day to the goal of getting better and better at everything we do.
TEAMWORK
We’re more effective when we work together.
Our impact is consistently stronger when we respect, support and view each other as partners.
Health and Safety
goal Health and Safety
The top priority in all of our operations is to protect the health and safety of our team and the communities we serve. At the heart of our safety program are our safety and operations teams, who are dedicated to ensuring that every employee gets home to his or her family at the end of each day.
Our safety success begins with hiring: a commitment to the safety of yourself and your team is a prerequisite for employment with Casella. It continues with new hire training, ongoing training, and thousands of daily decisions and actions that add up to a safe day.
Our commitment to our people goes beyond operational safety and extends to the holistic wellbeing of each individual. We strive to provide resources that support the physical and mental health of our employees and the overall well-being of their families.
Slow Down to Get Around
Slow Down to Get Around (SDGTA) is a national safety campaign that reminds motorists to drive more carefully near waste and recycling vehicles. Being struck by a motorist is a leading cause of death for waste and recycling collection employees, and with proper awareness, is completely preventable.
Casella has worked actively with the Solid Waste Association of North America to advance this important safety message. In addition to advocating for SDTGA legislation in the states where we operate, we are now working to add reflective SDTGA decals to many of our trucks.
Engagement
goal Engagement
We build people and cultivate engagement by investing in our career path programs, which open doors for development and career growth.
Apprenticeships
Through our apprenticeship program for drivers and technicians, we recruit new talent from many backgrounds and help them build the skills they need to thrive. The approach benefits our business, our employees, and our communities.
CDL Training
We believe in providing opportunities that don’t require college degrees. In 2019, we supported 45 drivers in securing their commercial drivers license (CDL), which unlocks new opportunities for them within Casella and beyond.
Operations Training
Our operations training program develops individuals into frontline manager roles. Through on-the-job training, participants learn the skills required to handle operations at our hauling divisions. Upon completion, trainees are offered a management position. Comparable programs are also available for landfills, maintenance, and finance.
We believe that people thrive and grow when they can clearly envision their successful future. Our career path programs ensure that each employee is empowered to pursue targeted training and coaching to succeed today and advance to their aspired future role tomorrow.
Diversity and Inclusion
Casella’s commitment to workplace diversity and to fostering a culture of inclusion is rooted in our core values of service, trust, responsibility, integrity, continuous improvement, and teamwork. Only by bringing our diverse backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives together can we develop the innovative waste and recycling solutions needed to build a better tomorrow for the communities and customers we serve.
Across the Company, we find countless examples of individual leadership to advance diversity and inclusion (D&I). Three of these are highlighted on the next page. As we continue down a path of sustainable growth, we remain committed to ensuring that these efforts are emulated and experienced consistently throughout the whole company.
A Path Forward
Our vision is to draw on our core values to continue striving for diversity throughout our workforce, including our leadership, that represents the geographies in which we serve. To ensure progress toward our vision, we make the following commitments for the year ahead:
- We will advance D&I throughout the career paths of our employees, with a year one focus on broadening our recruiting efforts to new talent pools, promoting diversity in our training and development programs, and encouraging diversity within our process for advancing the company’s next cohort of leaders.
- We believe that the awareness and skills necessary to foster an inclusive culture can be learned and developed. We will launch a cultural awareness and competency training program for managers that emphasizes D&I. We will achieve full management participation in that program by the end of 2021.
- We will incorporate better D&I tracking, procurement, and investment practices as part of our ongoing efforts to establish more strategic partnerships and purchasing platforms with our supplier network.
- We will establish an internal D&I team that will include broad representation from our workforce and will be led by a member of our executive management team.
Where We Are
The current diversity of our organization in terms of gender, race, and age is provided in the following charts.
- Females make up 20% of our team, with relatively consistent representation across levels of the organization. Females comprise 6.3% of our drivers and operators, a figure that is trending upward as we succeed in efforts to bring more women to these important operational roles. •
- Racial and ethnic minorities make up 12% of our team, which is roughly comparable to U.S. census data for the northeastern states where we operate. The gap between our workforce (13%) and management (5%) will be a focus area for improvement.
- While the transportation industry – including operators and technicians – grapples with the challenges of an aging workforce, we find that the generational mix of our organization is reasonably well balanced, due in large part to our successful apprenticeship programs.
Diversity at Casella
Gender, Racial, and Generational
| Female | Racial Minority | |
|---|---|---|
| Board of Directors | 20% | 10% |
| Management | 24% | 5% |
| Workforce | 19% | 13% |
| All Casella | 20% | 12% |
Examples of D&I Leadership
Immigration Populations
The Asian American Civic Association (AACA) empowers immigrant and low-income populations around Greater Boston. The group recognized Casella for being “integral to AACA’s efforts to launch next generation job training programs.” Specifically, Casella played a leadership role in developing and deploying the Green Automotive Maintenance Skills pilot program, which places individuals onto a strong diesel technician career path. Casella received AACA’s Employer of the Year Award (2020).
Holistic Support for those in Recovery
Casella has been proud to partner with Goodwill of Northern New England to bring their Job Connection program to Rutland, VT. Job Connection offers holistic support to individuals facing barriers to workforce participation, including past addiction, long-term poverty, mental health issues, and more. The collaboration between Casella and Goodwill has been recognized with two awards: the Spirit of Goodwill Award (2019) and the Partnership for Innovation Award (2020) from NHBSR.
Support for Veterans
One out of every thirteen Casella employees has a background of military service, and many more of our employees have family members that have served or are serving in the military. Casella is dedicated to hiring veterans, guard and reserve members, and military spouses and giving them opportunities for meaningful growth and development while doing important work. Casella was recently recognized as a Top Employer for Veterans in Maine (2020).