Social Capital
Social Capital – Social and Community Relationships
L.B. Foster understands the importance of our many social relationships and interactions. Our social connections influence our business success, employees, and the communities where we live and work. We expect our Company and employees to have a meaningful and positive impact on our stakeholders.
We believe it is necessary to communicate and collaborate with our stakeholders to keep lasting relationships. Engaging our various stakeholders is an iterative effort to assure that everyone is gaining value from the relationship. Our stakeholders include employees, customers, suppliers, investors, and the communities supporting our operations. Our method of engaging these stakeholders can vary, but common themes exist around mutual priorities, benefits and values.
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Employees We use various media to inform our employees of Company activity. Our primary tool for delivery is our intranet site called the HIVE, and is typically used for recognition, new hires, retirements, anniversaries, organizational changes, promotions, EH&S, wellness, and affinity group announcements.
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Customers We communicate regularly with our customers though formal and informal channels via daily business operations. Additionally, we collaborate through the requests for proposals process and place inquiries to find most important customer issues. We provide them with extensive product and services information, training, and, where proper, various systems to address questions and concerns.
Finally, with the advent of supply-chain sustainability, we respond to many customer questionnaires, whether direct or managed by 3rd parties such as EcoVadis. |
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Suppliers Globally, we engage with more than 1,000 partners and suppliers. Our Supplier Code of Conduct sets out our expectations for suppliers. We have dedicated supplier management teams that are responsible for keeping a healthy, collaborative relationship and focus on cost, quality, service levels, and continuous improvement of processes. We conduct supplier reviews based on risk assessments following our ISO requirements. Supply chain team members with our Tier 1 & 2 vendors have regular one-on-one meetings, corrective action incident reporting for non-conforming products or services and participate in industry and trade shows to stay abreast of technological advances. |
Investors & Analysts
Also, with a growth in investors assessing ESG practices, we engage ISS and S&P Global as one pathway to disclose and improve our assessments. |
We have approximately 30 facilities in 3 countries, which are in communities that our employees, their families, our customers, and their stakeholders call home. We want these communities to be inclusive, sustainable, and prosperous places to live and work.
Our social responsibility program encourages employees to volunteer or request corporate charitable donations to non-profit organizations with which they are active or where the Company operates. Historically, we have raised money for charitable causes requested by employees or supplied corporate support of community organizations, including:
- United Way Day of Caring
- United Way Fund Raiser
- Daffodil Days for the American Cancer Society
- Race for the Cure, Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Research
- Company sponsored volunteer days
- Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice
- Rumbletums Cafe
- The Passage
We receive great benefits from the communities where we work and in turn wish to keep our good neighbor presence. We rely on local services to aid with keeping our world moving. In addition to our social contribution, our commitments to our local communities include the taxes we pay. Without energy and water supply or the use of local infrastructure (e.g., roads, wastewater, security, local emergency), our market value would erode. We believe we have good relations with our local communities and that their leadership optimizes our income and property tax revenue for mutual benefit.
| Location | ~Workforce | ~ Tax Paid | Location | ~ Workforce | ~ Tax Paid |
| Hillsboro, TX | 100 | $187,800 | Columbia City, IN | 10 | $34,000 |
| Nampa, ID | 70 | $150,200 | Niles, OH | 30 | $107,000 |
| Waverly, WV | 75 | $173,300 | Pueblo, CO | 20 | $116,000 |
| Bedford, PA | 40 | $230,900 | Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, QC | 30 | $1,175,600 |
| Birmingham, Al | 25 | $134,900 | Burnaby, BC | 35 | $1.350,600 |
| Willis, TX (Chemtec) | 40 | $182,300 | Sheffield, UK | 40 | $534,100 |
| Willis, TX (Ball Winch) | 25 | $99,200 | Spokane, WA | 45 | $38,000 |
| Magnolia, TX | 10 | $95,700 | Greentree, PA (HQ) | 167 | $751,300 |
* Taxes include an aggregate of State/Local/Provincial/County property, personal, and income taxes.