Integrity is one of the core values of the adidas Group. All employees are expected to act with fairness and responsibility as well as in compliance with relevant laws and regulations while carrying out their tasks. In order to maintain good corporate governance, we have adopted the adidas Group Code of Conduct as part of our internal Global Policy Manual....
Integrity is one of the core values of the adidas Group. All employees are expected to act with fairness and responsibility as well as in compliance with relevant laws and regulations while carrying out their tasks. In order to maintain good corporate governance, we have adopted the adidas Group Code of Conduct as part of our internal Global Policy Manual.
The Code is the cornerstone of ethical work behaviour for our employees. It defines binding rules with respect to legally compliant and ethical behaviour towards other employees, business partners and third parties, for handling information – in particular insider information – as well as for dealing with financial matters.
The Code of Conduct is supported with mandatory online training available in ten languages. This ongoing training is aimed at raising awareness of ethical and social behaviour, as well as promoting compliance with data protection requirements and other policies. Every new employee is automatically invited to complete the training.
Complaints and non-compliances
To track complaints or cases of non-compliance, we have established a network of compliance officers worldwide. In 2010, we installed a new hotline for our business operations in China and have further expanded the number of compliance managers from 10 to 30.
A whistle-blowing system assures that employees can submit complaints anonymously. In addition to the existing channels, we are currently looking into an internal whistle-blowing intranet solution.
An analysis of the number and nature of entries submitted in 2011 showed that nearly 80% of all cases related to general complaints about employee-manager relations. In the remaining cases, employees were seeking advice on specific issues.
Ensuring data protection
Ensuring privacy around data is an important aspect of the Group’s compliance programme. Our data protection system aims to ensure that personal information is handled, stored and processed according to applicable laws and internal policies globally. All employees are provided with online data protection training, and special training is given to departments that manage sensitive data, such as marketing departments.