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We are a big company, employing approx. 42 000 people. For such a large organisation, setting out shared values for an exceptionally diverse group of employees is a great challenge.
We have in place since 2016 a key document related to our organisation’s ethical culture – PGE Code of Ethics. This set of rules and valuesbeing the impulse for creating our own organisational culture, serves as a foundation for our organisation’s operations and the achievement of strategic objectives at PGE Group, we comply with the laws and ethical principles.
We conduct our everyday business and work in accordance with this commitment. PGE Group is a place for those who value ethics rules and the law. We believe that ethics have much greater impact on the observance of law than the mere fact of legal regulations being in force. Even the best legal system is useless when confronted with a lack of an ethics culture in the organisation. Illegal activities may be explained by errors of individual employees, but the person breaking the rules had to have the opportunity to do it. A solid ethical culture may help companies in trouble caused by the actions of individual employees.
We are certain that all values – even corporate ones – start and end with the human being. Corporate values thus also come from us – individual people, employees. Therefore, the observance of corporate values most importantly depends on the personal values of each one of us.
The Code specifies the attitudes and behaviours that are expected of all employees and managers. The Code streamlines and collects in one place rules that employees should follow inside and outside the organisation, in contacts with business partners or co-workers.
To ensure that the Code is known, understood and respected, we are holding workshops across PGE Group for employees and management. First, we invited colleagues from inside the Group, who became internal trainers for the Code of Ethics. Training the trainers, numerous meetings and discussions to explain objectives, materials, exercises and all other doubts. Finally, the time, involvement and hearts of our internal trainers dedicated to best prepare and conduct training. Currently, we have approx. 180 internal trainers. Trainers conduct training across all business segments of the Group.
Workshops are conducted in a very active fashion, where participants talk about what makes honest behaviour easier or more difficult; they learn about rules binding in PGE Group and present their own perception of them.
In addition, in the course of active discussion, they present attitudes that personify our values: Partnership, Development, Responsibility, and propose to introduce specific organisational solutions at their unit or across the entire Group. These conclusions then serve as basis for implementing the best initiatives. These workshops were connected with training in PGE’s Good Procurement Practices, conducted by the Purchasing division.
Every new employee within the Group undergoes individual adaptive training shortly after starting work at PGE Group companies, where he/she finds out about the existing Code, the law and the obligation for employees to react to any potential irregularities. New employees get a chance to learn the details of the Code at adaptive group training called „Turn on the power”. These training sessions are conducted entirely by Group employees.
Additionally, the Group continued training related to combating corruption. In 2019, the trainers conducted 301 trainings in the Group. At the end of 2019 total number of employees trained in the Anti-corruption policy in the companies of the Group amounted to 29 580 (cumulative from 2018).
The Code of Ethics is available to Group employees on the Group’s Intranet as well as in paper form. It is also available at the company’s website. The content of the Code has been expanded upon in numerous thematic publications in our internal publication „Pod parasolem” (“Under umbrella”) and on the Intranet. This content is presented to employees in a cascading manner where they have a chance to discuss values with their superiors and ask them questions.
In communications related to the Code of Ethics, employees’ personal responsibility for their actions is emphasised in accordance with the Group’s ethical values and rules expressed in the Code as well as internal regulations, which further detail our processes and procedures.
Adopting the Code and clearly communicating the rules contained therein has a straightforward objective: support PGE Group’s Strategy as the most effective and flexible energy group in Poland and minimise the risk of non-compliance, which could result in penalties or sanctions being imposed or reputation being lost as a result of a failure to adapt to regulations and standards that are stated in law or constitute best practices in this area.
In order to implement the principles of the Code of Ethics, 355 training courses in 24 PGE Group companies with compliance structures were conducted in 2019. Until the end of 2019 a total of 40 243 employees of the Group had been trained (cumulative from 2016).
