Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE: APD) is an international corporation whose principal business is selling gases and chemicals for industrial uses. Air Products' headquarters is in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania, in the United States. Air Products is the Lehigh Valley's third largest employer, after Lehigh Valley Hospital and St. Luke's Hospital.
We take pride in being a global leader in our industry, and it’s our employees who make that possible. Our Human Resource policies and principles carry a common theme—helping our people reach their full potential in a culture of respect, fairness, inclusion and dignity. While our policies and principles—fully accessible to Air Products employees via an intranet site—are intended to represent a statement of our own high standards, they also reflect our review of labor standards espoused by human rights groups and other leading companies and organizations worldwide.
Air Products acknowledges the rights of its employees and adheres to all local and employment laws, wherever we operate, globally. We recognize and respect the cultural differences found in the worldwide marketplace and are committed to hiring people with varied backgrounds. We support equal opportunity, value diversity, and strive to provide a work environment that is supportive and inclusive of differences.
We maintain a strong policy against harassment, discrimination and retaliation of any kind based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, citizenship, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, veteran status, or physical or mental disability.
Total Rewards and Retention
Our Total Rewards and Retention approach for attracting, motivating, developing and retaining high-performing employees includes:
Market-based competitive pay
Market-based competitive benefit offerings for eligible full- and part-time employees, which may include medical/ wellness, employee assistance, dental, paid time off, retirement plans, life insurance, disability programs, long-term care insurance, adoption assistance and more
Career development and performance enhancement
Training, learning and knowledge management
Global health and wellness programs
Driving a diverse and inclusive work environment
Positive Employee Relations
With regard to employee relations, we work to create a culture that affords employees the opportunity to work without fear of intimidation, reprisal or harassment. We hold managers and leaders accountable for positive employee relations. We abide by an open door policy and strive for employees’ questions and concerns to be resolved in a fair and timely manner. Some of our employees are represented by officially designated third parties or designated/elected employee representatives, and we respect their voluntary freedom of association and right to bargain collectively and comply with pertinent locals laws where we operate.
Safety and Health
Former Air Products Chairman Ed Donley said, “Nothing is more important than safety: not production, not sales, not profits.” And that philosophy, applicable to our people, our customers and the communities where we live and work, remains our highest priority today. We believe all accidents are preventable, not inevitable, and we strive to meet and exceed applicable occupational health and safety standards. During 2009, we took actions to recommit to our Total Safety Philosophy, to which all employees must comply as a condition of their employment.
In building our “count-on-me” culture, our Basic Safety Process requires all employees to personally take corrective action and then complete an Accident Predictive Technique record as part of our Basic Safety Process. These records are tracked and assessed, and steps are taken to further improve safety performance throughout the organization.
Education and Training
Air Products has a globally consistent learning and development strategy to develop the talent our business needs and provide long-term career development for our employees. This is deployed through a global learning management system and our Air Products University organization. Annual world-class metrics have been established and are benchmarked through the American Society for Training & Development’s (ASTD) BEST methodology. Air Products has been twice recognized as a top 20 learning organization by ASTD’s rigorous benchmarking standard. The BEST criteria not only measure breadth of learning delivered, but also include employee satisfaction, effectiveness and job impact.
Through the 11 colleges of Air Products University, we provide over 6,000 classroom and Web-based course offerings with development tracks to build our people’s skills. Supported by our Learning and Knowledge Management Center of Excellence, there are over 100 Learning Communities and actions teams within the company. Our goal is to create an environment where everyone 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, educated to innovate new customer solutions, and learn from our collective experience to grow and sustain the company by refreshing and developing new business skills.
For example, all employees are required to complete Code of Conduct training, which includes standards for fair dealings, diversity and respect in the workplace, equal opportunity employment, human rights and labor and employment laws, health and safety, intellectual asset protection and global data privacy, and related topics. In addition, our Commit to Integrity learning program provides a supplemental, comprehensive curriculum on ethics and compliance topics based on employees’ job responsibilities. More than 1,000 leaders around the world have completed our Leadership Education program, which takes participants through a personal examination of their knowledge, skills and leadership attitudes to select developmental goals that meet personal growth and company needs. In addition, approximately 1,000 new managers and supervisors have completed our global Management Fundamentals Program—our 15-month, instructor-led e-learning and coaching program that helps prepare them to transition effectively into their roles. We also provide an Educational Assistance Program by which more than 250 eligible employees globally received funding during the year for accredited undergraduate, graduate or certificate courses of study from qualifying institutions each year.
We take pride in being a global leader in our industry, and it’s our employees who make that possible. Our Human Resource policies and principles carry a common theme—helping our people reach their full potential in a culture of respect, fairness, inclusion and dignity. While our policies and principles—fully accessible to Air Products employees via an intranet site—are intended to represent a statement of our own high standards, they also reflect our review of labor standards espoused by human rights groups and other leading companies and organizations worldwide.
Air Products acknowledges the rights of its employees and adheres to all local and employment laws, wherever we operate, globally. We recognize and respect the cultural differences found in the worldwide marketplace and are committed to hiring people with varied backgrounds. We support equal opportunity, value diversity, and strive to provide a work environment that is supportive and inclusive of differences.
We maintain a strong policy against harassment, discrimination and retaliation of any kind based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, citizenship, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, veteran status, or physical or mental disability.
Total Rewards and Retention
Our Total Rewards and Retention approach for attracting, motivating, developing and retaining high-performing employees includes:
Market-based competitive pay
Market-based competitive benefit offerings for eligible full- and part-time employees, which may include medical/ wellness, employee assistance, dental, paid time off, retirement plans, life insurance, disability programs, long-term care insurance, adoption assistance and more
Career development and performance enhancement
Training, learning and knowledge management
Global health and wellness programs
Driving a diverse and inclusive work environment
Positive Employee Relations
With regard to employee relations, we work to create a culture that affords employees the opportunity to work without fear of intimidation, reprisal or harassment. We hold managers and leaders accountable for positive employee relations. We abide by an open door policy and strive for employees’ questions and concerns to be resolved in a fair and timely manner. Some of our employees are represented by officially designated third parties or designated/elected employee representatives, and we respect their voluntary freedom of association and right to bargain collectively and comply with pertinent locals laws where we operate.
Safety and Health
Former Air Products Chairman Ed Donley said, “Nothing is more important than safety: not production, not sales, not profits.” And that philosophy, applicable to our people, our customers and the communities where we live and work, remains our highest priority today. We believe all accidents are preventable, not inevitable, and we strive to meet and exceed applicable occupational health and safety standards. During 2009, we took actions to recommit to our Total Safety Philosophy, to which all employees must comply as a condition of their employment.
In building our “count-on-me” culture, our Basic Safety Process requires all employees to personally take corrective action and then complete an Accident Predictive Technique record as part of our Basic Safety Process. These records are tracked and assessed, and steps are taken to further improve safety performance throughout the organization.
Education and Training
Air Products has a globally consistent learning and development strategy to develop the talent our business needs and provide long-term career development for our employees. This is deployed through a global learning management system and our Air Products University organization. Annual world-class metrics have been established and are benchmarked through the American Society for Training & Development’s (ASTD) BEST methodology. Air Products has been twice recognized as a top 20 learning organization by ASTD’s rigorous benchmarking standard. The BEST criteria not only measure breadth of learning delivered, but also include employee satisfaction, effectiveness and job impact.
Through the 11 colleges of Air Products University, we provide over 6,000 classroom and Web-based course offerings with development tracks to build our people’s skills. Supported by our Learning and Knowledge Management Center of Excellence, there are over 100 Learning Communities and actions teams within the company. Our goal is to create an environment where everyone 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, educated to innovate new customer solutions, and learn from our collective experience to grow and sustain the company by refreshing and developing new business skills.
For example, all employees are required to complete Code of Conduct training, which includes standards for fair dealings, diversity and respect in the workplace, equal opportunity employment, human rights and labor and employment laws, health and safety, intellectual asset protection and global data privacy, and related topics. In addition, our Commit to Integrity learning program provides a supplemental, comprehensive curriculum on ethics and compliance topics based on employees’ job responsibilities. More than 1,000 leaders around the world have completed our Leadership Education program, which takes participants through a personal examination of their knowledge, skills and leadership attitudes to select developmental goals that meet personal growth and company needs. In addition, approximately 1,000 new managers and supervisors have completed our global Management Fundamentals Program—our 15-month, instructor-led e-learning and coaching program that helps prepare them to transition effectively into their roles. We also provide an Educational Assistance Program by which more than 250 eligible employees globally received funding during the year for accredited undergraduate, graduate or certificate courses of study from qualifying institutions each year.