Only those who are familiar with the legal requirements, internal regulations and processes as well as the applicable standards are capable of acting responsibly and being compliant. For this, we have developed our global, comprehensive legal & compliance training program. We use it to provide our employees with the support they need to overcome even difficult situations and minimize compliance risks. At the same time, we are thus establishing a basis for ensuring our employees act with compliance over the long term. To this end, we regularly review our training program, adjust or expand it as needed and subsequently evaluate the trainings.

We support our employees worldwide with a specific training program.

Our target-group oriented online legal & compliance training program is available to all our employees in the Group companies. In addition to a basic module, the training program includes a specific module for managers as well as expert modules for various areas of compliance. Examples include trainings on antitrust law, human rights, data protection and technical compliance as well as on function-specific topics in areas such as procurement and sales.

The trainings are practical and include exemplary cases and complex situations from everyday work. Our white-collar employees are required to periodically complete the modules relevant for their role and function. Blue-collar employees can complete the web-based training program voluntarily.

The web-based trainings for our employees are supplemented by classroom training sessions worldwide as well as virtual classroom formats that also explore various subject areas related to legal and compliance. We provide our trainer network with modular training documents and materials for this, such as trainer guidelines and explanatory videos.

Our employees in the compliance and legal organizations are regularly trained by experts on new developments in their respective field of compliance or legal. We also use a special onboarding program to familiarize new employees in our compliance, and legal affairs organizations with their new tasks.

We clearly define our compliance requirements not just for our employees, but also for our business partners and suppliers, since compliance is a precondition for trusting cooperation. That is why we support our business partners and suppliers by providing a Compliance Awareness Module.

It helps suppliers and sales partners tackle potential compliance risks such as those relating to fair competition, data protection, human rights, product compliance or dealing with corruption risks. In the module, we explain the expectations we have towards our business partners and suppliers and provide information on legal requirements and ethical standards.