Social responsibility Onboarding Right from day one, we want to make a positive impression on our employees and foster a sense of loyalty to our company. Following their job offer, we therefore stay in contact with our soon-to-be colleagues and invite them to company events so that they can get an initial feel for our business. Once they start work with us, we also assign new starters a workplace buddy who is on hand to provide help and support in their first few weeks and months. This removes some of the workload from the employee's line manager and also provides an informal opportunity for new employees to raise matters that may not be directly related to their work. As a result, new starters quickly become part of the team and get up to speed with their day-to-day responsibilities. During their first six months at Blum, new starters also follow the Blum training programme for new employees, which includes mandatory e-learning courses and in-person training sessions that give them a valuable introduction to our business as a whole, as well as the opportunity to network. Dialogue and participation Participation and dialogue are extremely important for the long-term retention of employees. The works council plays a key role by representing employees' interests to the Executive Board. Its members are elected every five years by the workforce. The works council promotes a culture of trust across the business, creates legal clarity and transparency and concludes committed agreements with the employer. The rights and responsibilities of the works council for our Austrian workforce are defined in the Austrian Labour Constitution Act (ArbVG). In line with this legislation, the council has an important decision-making role in many areas, not least working hours (shift plans, break times) and overtime. It also plays an advisory role in matters relating to safety and accident prevention, as well as in dismissal or redundancy cases. By working together with the senior company management to find constructive solutions, the works council helps make Blum a safe and attractive place to work with fair working conditions. Another important employee representative body for our Austrian sites is the youth council, which provides a link between our apprentices and the company and serves as an intermediary between them and the staff responsible for their training. The youth council is elected every two years. Its members (who are all similar-age peers) are responsible for representing the interests of all apprentices at Blum. The youth council also organises excursions and team-building events and actively helps to shape the way training is delivered. For instance, the youth council developed a set of guidelines for appraisal meetings which have now been adopted as official protocol across our company. However, the youth council's role is not confined to the training that our apprentices receive in-house at Blum: its members are also on hand to assist our young colleagues if problems arise at their vocational college. 59
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