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Acting Responsibly
Achieving goals together while remaining healthy and productive.
Demography management receives award
In 2010, our demography management was awarded the FOKUS 50plus Award by an initiative of Apriori – business solutions AG. This initiative recognizes companies that actively deal with the consequences of an aging society in the working world. Continental received the award for its Germany-wide ergonomics project in particular. As part of this project, we succeeded in significantly increasing the proportion of "age-neutral" job positions in production between 2005 and 2010. All told, 25,000 jobs have been evaluated in the process.
The heart of the ergonomics project is our Stress Documentation System, or SDS for short, which is used to analyze job positions and then design the work environment in such a way that the work can be done, in principle, by employees of any age. This allows us to keep older colleagues in the working process and therefore invest in both older employees and future employees. In the next step, we plan to set up SDS throughout Europe and then worldwide.
As well as the measures for designing job positions, we are also carrying out extensive demography program activities in HR marketing, HR recruiting, internal staff development and staff qualification in order to tackle the demographic change.
Professional and personal life in balance
Every day, Continental employees deliver top performance and meet tough demands. That said, it is important to us that they remain physically and emotionally healthy and balanced. A key prerequisite for this is a balanced relationship between work and personal life (work-life balance), which benefits both the employees and the company.
Continental therefore supports initiatives that contribute to the work-life balance, such as traditional measures like flexible working hours, help in organizing child care and social services. We are also actively involved in occupational health management. A variety of location-related activities help employees focus their attention on their responsibility for their own physical and emotional health and support them in personal resource management.
"Leading yourself and others in a healthy high-performance culture" is one of our initiatives for managers. In a workshop lasting one-and-a-half days, we show how professional life can be organized in such a way that high demands are not overwhelming. We also communicate to our managers personal health expertise and awareness of how they treat themselves and others. In addition, we motivate all of them to make sure that they have enough time for family, hobbies and health.
Achieving ambitious goals together while remaining healthy and productive is our motto.
Diversity
Promoting diversity – diversity of people in terms of their ethnic or social origin, religion, gender and age – is firmly rooted at Continental in the BASICS corporate guidelines. The diversity of our staff opens up opportunities for Continental and its employees. It is therefore our goal to acquire and support employees worldwide who, precisely because they are different, contribute to developing innovative products and processes, tapping new markets and acquiring new customers. To do this, we rely on different expertise and backgrounds without regulating them with set quotas.
Our diversity management focuses on gender and internationality. In 2010, we added diversity to HR management's balanced scorecard as a KPI (key performance indicator), laying the foundation for a comprehensive analysis of the global employment of foreign and female specialists and managers at the corporation. In the initiatives, we focus on tools to reconcile work and family, staff development and staff recruiting.
Measures for reconciling family and work include child care opportunities such as location-based membership in child care associations, nursery places and child care during emergencies and holidays, as well as individual contractual solutions such as flexible working hours, part time contracts and home office agreements.
We ensure the targeted support of female and foreign specialists and managers with management qualification programs offered at the corporation. Regular evaluations of the percentage of female and foreign participants show that these measures are used successfully by both groups and that their percentage is steadily growing.
"ContiTeamCup" for all employees
In the year under review, ContiTeamCup – our worldwide company football tournament – took place for the second time, with more than 100 locations entering the contest under the motto "fit for the future". The teams played each other first at local level, then at national level, and finally at group level. The ContiTeamCup tournament is not just about playing football. It also enables many employees from different countries and cultures get to know one another.
The two world champion teams (the women's team from Cuautla, Mexico, and the men's team from Korbach, Germany) were each presented with a winners' trophy and prize money of €15,000 which was used locally for a good cause of their choice.
Compliance organization restructured
Responsible and sustainable management has long been a permanent cornerstone of Continental's corporate culture. This includes compliance with all laws applicable to our business activities and all internal guidelines. Continental already has a variety of compliance tools and measures in place. To further improve compliance activities and make them even more effective, a global compliance organization with a central compliance department was established. It reports to the Corporate Compliance Officer.
Integrity, openness, trust and mutual respect are virtues that guide our business activities and are reflected in our corporate guidelines. Our Code of Conduct requires that all employees act in compliance with the legal regulations of the countries in which we operate and observe our ethical principles, internal guidelines and instructions. The task of the compliance organization is to support the responsible management and all Continental employees in this regard.
The compliance department's work focuses in part on the prevention of corruption and non-compliance with antitrust laws and rules governing competition.
Our Compliance & Anti-Corruption Hotline is available to employees, as well as to customers, suppliers and other affected parties. Via the hotline, people can report – anonymously if desired – possible violations of laws, ethical principles and internal guidelines without having to fear negative consequences. We investigate all information submitted without exception.
Competition for future engineers
For the first time, students competed in the Formula Student international design competition not only with vehicles featuring traditional internal combustion engines, but also with electric vehicles. In the world's first Formula Student Electric, the teams had to design a racing car equipped with an all-electric engine as drive source plus a battery. In this competition, which is held around the world, future engineers from international universities have one year to design and build a one-seater prototype on their own, which is then judged by experts from the automotive industry in three static categories and five dynamic disciplines. The special feature of Formula Student: the competition is not won by the team with the fastest car, but rather by the team with the best overall performance comprising design, racing success, financial planning and marketing. At a global level, Continental supports 31 teams from 12 countries. This sponsoring helps to obtain future engineers and keep them with the company in the long term.