Linde Corporate Responsibility Report 2005

In any business, frank and open communication forms the best platform for employee and customer satisfaction. The intense dialog between our organization and its members is ongoing and transcends hierarchical barriers. Many of our national companies already conduct employee surveys. The results provide valuable pointers on measures designed to further improve smooth cooperation.

One good example is the anonymous employee survey first carried out in 2004 at Linde Gas, in which some 3,000 staff took part. The long-term objective was to achieve a lasting improvement of the working climate and corporate culture as a whole.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
People who champion candid criticism need to lead by example. Even in the corporate arena, learning never stops. At Linde Gas, employee surveys act as important tools, providing us with insights into the needs and wants of the men and women who make up our organization. At Linde, no one need be afraid to speak their mind. Frank feedback from our workforce gives us the motivation and the ability to preserve what is good and improve what could be better.

It is the duty of management to implement annual surveys to ensure the comparability of – and document progress in – fields such as the communication between supervisors and employees. These surveys have now been initiated in South America and Northern Europe as well, and the results of the Linde Gas pilot have been published in the intranet and are thus accessible to all employees. Our subsidiary OM Pimespo has also been leveraging the employee survey tool for several years with the goal of improving cooperation between management and the workforce.

Moreover, organizational changes and significant events are communicated quickly and in impactful ways. One of the channels we use is our in-house publication, “Linde Today,” which is distributed worldwide in six different languages. We also encourage dialog with our co-workers by means of electronic “chatmails” addressed directly to them on behalf of the Executive Board or the heads of the relevant business segments.

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