Bacardi South Africa, a subsidiary of Bacardi Limited, the largest privately held spirits company in the world, has been recognised as a Top Employer in South Africa. Bacardi’s company values focus on three F’s: ‘Fearless’, ‘Founders’ and ‘Family’, and as a culture first company, investing in their people and teams has always been at the core of the business’ success. The Bacardi SA team have actively followed this company vision, and are extremely proud to receive the highly coveted Top Employer certification.

Top Employers Institute is the global authority on recognising excellence in People Practices and certifies organisations based on the participation and results of their HR Best Practices Survey. For an organisation to successfully certify as a Top Employer, it is required to showcase that the implementation of their HR policies and people strategies cultivated an employee work environment that was engaging and culture inclusive. The certification cements Bacardi’s commitment to creating a work environment that’s nurturing, entrepreneurial, empowering, and embedded in fun. 

“Bacardi Limited is a 7th generation family business and with family values at the core of our practices we focus on cultivating a culture of caring, trust, passion and excellence. In fact, we don’t call Bacardi team members ‘employees’, we call them ‘primos’, which means ‘cousins’ in Spanish. Our people are our biggest asset, and it is imperative to have a work culture aligned with our family-oriented values,” says Francois Portier, Managing Director for Bacardi in Sub-Saharan Africa. “Our founder’s mentality inspires a progressive, trend-focused and curious mindset within the organisation that has allowed us to create a culture of fearlessness that drives our decisions and allows us to remain agile and creative.” 

The Top Employers Institute HR Best Practices Survey is a comprehensive analysis of an organisation’s Human Resources environment covering 6 HR domains and consisting of 20 topics, such as People Strategy, Work Environment, Talent Acquisition, Learning, Well-being, Diversity & Inclusion and more. The programme has certified and recognised more than 1700 Top Employers in 120 countries across five continents. 

Bacardi South Africa is a key priority market for the global business and investment and development in their people has been paramount to driving success locally. Bacardi South Africa seeks and nurtures talent that are as passionate, enterprising and goal-oriented as the business through numerous internal and partner programs. Career development and advancement opportunities are prioritized for primos through the ‘Bacardi Ready’ program, and regular ‘Let’s Talk’ sessions take place, driving open discussions around performance and growth. These initiatives have succeeded in achieving greater input and participation due to a more personal and relationship-oriented framework, and as a result, Bacardi South Africa has become a key developer and exporter of local talent, encouraging primos to expand their capabilities to other international markets.

“We are honoured and proud to have been recognised as a Top Employer in South Africa, despite the challenging year that 2020 proved to be, and we look forward to sustaining our people practices to foster our ongoing philosophy of putting our people first,” concludes Portier.

Top Employers Institute CEO David Plink says: “Despite the challenging year we have experienced, which has certainly made an impact on organisations around the globe, Bacardi South Africa has continued to demonstrate the power of putting their people first in the workplace. We are proud to share this year’s announcement and congratulate the organisations that have been certified in their respective countries through the Top Employers Institute programme.”