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Talent Management | Employee Development | Engagement | Diversity and Inclusion | Work/Life Balance
Air Products’ Global Workforce (approximate) 
 With a focus on safety, innovation and productivity, we challenge our people to excel—delivering value to customers and making contributions to their communities. Our goal is to provide the resources our employees need to understand and identify with our business objectives serving key energy, environmental and emerging markets, and express and contribute their ideas about the best ways to achieve them.
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- Market-based competitive salary program
- Variable elements may include cash, equity and other recognition awards for achieving specific organizational results
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GLOBAL PERFORMANCE
ENHANCEMENT PROCESS |
- Global process for managing performance and career development for most employees
- Employees’ accomplishments and behaviors are assessed against annual objectives and relative to their peers
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| Benefits |
- Market-based competitive benefit offerings, which may include medical/wellness,employee assistance, dental, paid time off, retirement plans, life insurance, disability programs, long-term care insurance, adoption assistance, etc., for eligible full- and part-time employees and their families
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Global Data Privacy
Beyond adhering to country-specific data protection requirements, our Global Data Privacy Policy reflects our commitment to safeguard the personal information of our employees and all other individuals with whom we deal.
Human Rights
Beyond following all labor and employment laws in the countries where we operate, our Human Rights Policy for owned operations echoes our support of core labor standards. We do not condone child labor, forced labor or discrimination, and we strive to maintain positive employee relations in all areas in which we operate. Our Human Rights Policy is an integral component of our global Employee Code of Conduct.
Talent Management
We use our talent management processes to support our efforts to attract, develop, engage and retain our employees and prospective employees. Our focus on sustainability is an important element and competitive advantage in these initiatives. In today’s world, individuals are looking to work for companies like ours that are responsible corporate citizens striving to operate sustainably. In the area of employee development, we use our global Human Resource Planning (HRP) Process to help ensure that we have the right people and the right organizations available at the right time to meet business and marketplace requirements. This process draws from our global business plans. It enables us to manage our talent pools; make appropriate staffing, development and succession decisions; and structure organizations to drive a high performing company. Outcomes from the HRP process are specific individual and organization plans, which are monitored regularly to ensure progress is being made. As circumstances change, these regular reviews enable necessary plan adjustments to be introduced.
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Career Development Program
This year, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of our Career Development Program started by our founder, Leonard Pool. More than 2,500 engineering, MBA, information technology, human resources and PhD professionals have participated in the program's series of rotational assignments, providing unique insight into our corporate culture and career paths to enable participants to take an active role in shaping their individual careers. |
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Our current Chairman, President and CEO, John McGlade (left), and his predecessor, John P. Jones III, began their Air Products careers as CDP participants. |
Employee Development: From Training to Learning
Having built the 11 colleges of Air Products University—today with more than 6,000 course offerings and development tracks—we are developing our people to work in a global economy, building their skills in areas ranging from management, engineering, manufacturing and supply chain, to finance, EH&S, sales and innovation. Importantly, we continue to shift the focus of our employee development from training to learning by combining more organizational learning experiences with conventional formal training initiatives.
Three years ago, approximately 80% of employee education hours were considered standard “training.” Today, the percentage has moved to 50% training/50% learning, as we’ve built more than 100 learning communities and action teams within the company. These communities, which are supported through our Learning and Knowledge Management Center of Excellence, focus on striking a balance between effectively meeting customer needs and optimizing our business processes. The purpose is to create an environment in which everyone in the company can learn from each other’s experiences, reuse the knowledge others have, and collaborate on projects of common interest. This approach allows us to ensure our employees are trained to comply with job requirements, are educated to innovate new customer solutions, and learn from our collective experience to grow and sustain the enterprise. Learning communities are broad-based and engage employees from different organizations, regions, cultures and age groups. Examples include:
- Manufacturing Best Practice Transfer
- Innovation and Technology Roundtables
- Employee Networks
- Change Management Community of Practice
- Knowledge Retention and Transfer
- Strategic Development and Implementation
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| Air Products Again Honored for Approach to Learning
For the second consecutive year, Air Products was selected as a BEST award winner by the American Society for Training and Development for successful learning strategies that have improved business performance, including: |
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• Learning strategy tied to business strategy with demonstrable business outcomes
• Financial measurement to ensure cost-effectiveness and learning ROI
• Broad educational program to accelerate time to competency
• Modern learning methods such as Web-based instruction, distance learning, and
learning communities
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Continuing Education
Continuing education is essential to our productivity and competitiveness. Taking individual performance, career goals and the company’s business needs into consideration, our global Educational Assistance Program provides eligible employees with funding for accredited undergraduate, graduate or certificate courses of study from qualifying institutions. Approximately 300 individuals participated in this program during 2008.
Developing Leaders
We believe leadership can be learned. Formal leadership education programs have been in place since 1996. The current program involves three sessions—Leading Yourself, Leading Others, and Leading the Organization—which take participants through a self-examination of their knowledge, skills and leadership attitudes and then select developmental goals that meet personal needs and the needs of the organization into the future. Approximately 1,000 leaders have participated in our Leadership Education program since its inception.
Building on the success of Leadership Education, we deployed our Management Fundamentals learning solution for new managers and supervisors in 2006. More than 1,000 individuals have completed or are in the process of completing the 15-month program, which combines instructor-led classes, facilitated e-learning, and coaching sessions to provide the tools and knowledge needed for successful transition into management roles.
Engagement: Hear, Listen and Understand
We strive to hear, listen and understand what our employees are telling us and act on their feedback to continuously improve our work environment and culture. We do this primarily through maintaining an ongoing dialogue with our employees through our “Ask Management” Web sites, which provide a forum to ask questions anonymously, and through town meetings. Each year, across the company, our executives and business leaders host approximately 40 town meetings. These talks are Webcast live with call- and email-in capability and then archived on our corporate intranet.
Diversity and Inclusion: Individually Strong, Collectively Powerful
In today’s world, we are not isolated by the locations where we work. Everything we do is connected in so many ways. An action in one location can create ripples that reach across the world. It is crucial to our future business to understand this—to not only adapt to that reality, but to embrace it and use it to our advantage. That’s why a diverse and inclusive workforce is essential. We want to be recognized by our colleagues, customers and operating communities as a company that draws strength, opportunity and financial growth from the diversity of our workforce.
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How We Promote Diversity and Inclusion:
- Diversity education initiatives
- Diversity recognition partnerships
- Multicultural events
- Support and assistance for Employee Network Groups
- Community and philanthropic commitment
Our Diversity and Inclusion Structure:
- Corporate Executive Committee
- Executive Forum for Diversity
- Diversity and Inclusion Department
- Diversity Leadership Teams
- Employee Network Groups
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No Barriers: Building Disability Awareness in Poland
Air Products will hold its fifth annual Diversity Recognition Awards in 2009. Our 2008 winner was our Polish Integration Team, who won the award for the successful integration of BOC Gazy and Air Products Poland into our global operations in 2008. This team has focused its 2009 efforts on a new disability awareness campaign.
According to Integracja, which represents the interests of the disabled nationally, around one in eight—or nearly five million—people in Poland are considered disabled, many of whom are qualified and capable of contributing fully to various roles in the workplace. To ensure that we are actively recruiting skilled, motivated talent, the Air Products team is running a disability awareness campaign that includes employee communications, updating recruitment policies and procedures, and identifying potential facility needs. |
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In addition to issuing a monthly e-newsletter Bez Barier (No Barriers), our Polish Integration Team is delivering disability awareness presentations to employees throughout Poland. The goal of their project is to educate the organization and prepare to recruit talent from the disabled community. |
Work/Life Balance
We recognize that flexibility is key to helping our employees balance their work and personal lives. As a result, we have numerous programs and policies that may be offered to employees at various stages of their work lives. A variety of flexible work arrangements and leave of absence options, depending on employee and business needs, may be offered, including:
- Flexible schedules
- Compressed workweeks
- Reduced hours (including part-time and job-sharing)
- Telecommuting
- Short- and long-term leave for personal reasons (childcare, eldercare)
- Leave for emergency family reasons
- Education leave
- Medical leave
- Adoption leave
- Military leave
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