Employee Engagement Survey
We have a long tradition of measuring employee satisfaction through our Employee Engagement Survey. In 2020, we began implementing an updated employee feedback strategy that will allow us to be more agile and flexible in listening to our employees through regular pulse surveys. In response to COVID-19, we launched a Global Well-Being Pulse survey for all salaried and specific hourly employees. Feedback from these surveys allow us to quickly respond to employee concerns and implement new policies such as home office reimbursement and modified leave options. In 2021, we are conducting quarterly engagement pulses that provide relevant and timely information about our employees. We also plan to expand our scope to include all hourly employees in 2021. We are excited about the opportunities this will create for our people leaders to understand employee concerns and implement timely action plans.
Talent Recruitment and Retention Strategies
With 78,000 employees around the globe, Whirlpool Corporation is always looking to attract, engage and retain great employees. Our Global Talent Acquisition team helps our business leaders find the best potential candidates to join us in our “Winning Workplace.” Whether it’s executive recruiting, professional recruiting or hourly hiring solutions, our team works together to drive diverse slates of candidates to help our overall diversity profile, and hire and retain the best talent we can find globally.
We also take talent retention seriously. We provide competitive pay and benefits, encourage learning and educational opportunities and have a strong inclusion and diversity strategy to ensure that every employee is able to bring their whole self to work each day. Our performance management system, Everyday Performance Excellence, empowers employees to plan their career development with the help of their people leaders, and we strongly support our employees’ long-term goals. We also continuously develop our people leaders to ensure our employees have the best leadership experience possible.
Leadership Development Programs and Interns
All around the globe, Whirlpool Corporation offers early career development programs designed to provide high-potential early career talent with the opportunity to set a solid foundation for an accelerated career path. We set challenging goals and objectives for growth and high performance, create a meaningful work environment and encourage teamwork among all levels, functions and businesses. Every role is designed to make a difference and be immediately impactful. With dedicated leadership as sponsors of the programs, robust roles and a strong alumni community, each program is designed to prepare individuals to become exceptional future leaders at Whirlpool Corporation.
Portal/Informing
As a part of our global HR Excellence project, we continue to perfect our internal portal so that our employees have the information they need at their disposal. From benefits to compensation and employee life cycle events, we provide a self-service format that allows employees to easily handle many tasks themselves. Our HR Support structure allows employees to call in, chat or ask questions online and receive prompt, accurate answers from our Employee Service Call Center team. Finally, our global communications platform, WHR360, has four channels dedicated to Human Resources and enables us to provide relevant information in real time to all our employees in one place. Accessible to both desktop and deskless employees, it provides employees the opportunity to participate and provide feedback about company happenings.
WeLEARN
WeLEARN is our new front door to a personalized learning experience. This digital learner-driven platform is designed to allow employees to access learning when and where they need it, collaborate with others and build skills for today and tomorrow. Launched in 2020, it is part of a multiyear strategy to create a learning culture at Whirlpool Corporation and is available to all of our salaried employees globally. It is a powerful platform that makes learning easy, meaningful and social, so each employee can own their professional and personal development.
Developing Our People
The World Class Manufacturing methodology includes the "People Development" or PD Pillar, which is focused on employee development and training. A function of the PD Pillar in each operation is to establish and manage a training matrix to identify training requirements (regulatory, legal, or other) for site personnel. For example, safety training consists of a combination of regulatory-required training and value-added training. To ensure compliance with these requirements, each of our operations is audited periodically to confirm execution. Competency checks as part of the WCM methodology confirm understanding and learning on the part of affected employees.
Educational Reimbursement
We support the personal development of our employees through a continuous learning journey. In addition to the learning resources that can be accessed at any time through WeLEARN and other employer-sponsored training, employees may also be eligible to participate in the Educational Reimbursement program. This program provides reimbursement to eligible employees for accredited programs in pursuit of associate, undergraduate or graduate degrees. This benefit is available to all eligible employees in the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, Asia and EMEA. Specific criteria for eligibility differ by region, but the overall goal of these programs is to provide assistance to employees seeking to further their own development and improve job skills.
Freedom of Association
Whirlpool Corporation respects the rights of its employees to associate with whom they choose. We respect the right of employees to join or not join an independent trade union and will bargain in good faith with these associations when they are properly elected. We estimate that, during 2020, 52.5% of our global employees were covered by a collective bargaining agreement.
Everyday Performance Excellence (EPE)
EPE is Whirlpool Corporation’s employee performance management system. The primary objectives of EPE are to enable people leaders to bring out the best in their teams and to create an environment where employees can do their best work every day. Tools and training enable people leaders and employees to perform better. The EPE system focuses on both the “what” and the “how” of performance. Employees create objectives in each of four performance categories (Business Performance, Strategic/Project Impact, Organization and Talent, and My Leadership and Values).
Formal reviews at mid-year and year-end are supplemented with continuous coaching and feedback from people leaders and cross-functional partners to drive results. Performance management processes for our hourly workforce vary by geography and incorporate various manufacturing plant metrics for performance measurement.
Long-Term Incentives
We grant equity below our management director level at the senior manager, manager and senior analyst level in recognition of high performance and future leadership potential. These incentives vest over a period of four years. The ultimate value of these equity awards is dependent upon the company's stock price.
