Global Ethics, Integrity and Compliance

Just like our approach to developing high-quality products that improve life at home, our ethics and compliance efforts hold us to the highest possible standards.

Our commitment to seek out opportunities for improvement is evident in our internal culture of “Speak Up, Listen Up.” Our goal is to create a culture in which people feel respected, valued and heard, and, at the same time, feel that they have a vested interest in the success of the company. We want people to thrive because they engage with the Whirlpool culture. That is why our policies regarding employee behavior and supplier expectations align so closely with our core values and why we encourage employees to actively communicate any issues through multiple channels (our Integrity Channels).

See Our Integrity Manual and comprehensive list of Corporate Policies for more detail.

Our Ethics and Compliance function is always seeking opportunities to better manage risks across all aspects of the company. This year, recognizing the increasing level of data our stakeholders entrust to us, we adjusted our internal structure by bringing the data privacy function within the Ethics and Compliance team to increase coordination and enhance security.

Oversight of Ethics and Compliance

Global Ethics and Compliance Team

Reviews all ethics and compliance matters raised
Reviews reporting trends and investigation results
Reports trends and recommendations to the committees

Global Ethics and Compliance Steering Committee

Composed of senior leaders
Reviews results and trends across the companyrs

Regional Ethics and Compliance Committees

Composed of regional leaders
Review results and trends in the regions

Our Integrity Manual

Our Integrity Manual (code of ethics) guides our culture of integrity and has been designed with two major themes in mind: a cultural section in which we describe our values and a principles section describing how those values are put into action. All employees, including leadership, are trained on Our Integrity Manual during their onboarding and recertify their Integrity Commitment annually. In 2023, this annual training was extended in focus and scope to train employees and leaders during a “Global Integrity Quarter.” To further support the use of Our Integrity Manual by global employees, we have developed the Living Code — an interactive tool that helps employees apply ethical decision-making in their day-to-day work using decision trees and other methods.

42 median days to close investigations, below industry benchmarks

1,046 total cases raised globally through the Global Integrity Line

32% increase in total number of average cases, attributable
to efforts to encourage employees to raise questions

Deepening Our Culture of Ethics and Compliance

In addition to robust controls and policies, we also rely on employees to raise any ethics or compliance issues they might encounter. That’s why our culture of “Speak Up, Listen Up” is so crucial to our success — it takes every one of us to maintain the level of ethical operation that we strive for every day. Therefore, we train our employees and provide multiple Integrity Channels through which they can communicate any questions or concerns. When an issue is raised, the Global Ethics and Compliance team follows a global investigation protocol to process, investigate and resolve the issue.

The Global Integrity Line

We take our employees’ comments seriously and value their ideas to make us all better. The Global Integrity Line is a confidential resource that allows individuals to raise ethics-, compliance-, and values-related questions or concerns anonymously and without fear of retribution or retaliation. This resource can be accessed via the web or phone and is administered by an independent third-party with translation capabilities.

To allow employees to communicate with us, we maintain and constantly improve the quality and quantity of communication channels that are available. In 2023, we upgraded the interface of our online Global Integrity Line to enhance the user experience and increase functionality.

Global Integrity Quarter

Building on our successful Global Integrity Week in 2022, we expanded our efforts this year to last a full quarter, enabling more topics to be covered and increased flexibility for employees to participate in educational events and conversations.

Results from the Global Integrity Quarter include:

7,688 employees
engaged

100% participation from
Executive Committee members

10 events, including micro-learnings, online training and in-person discussions