Biotest has implemented national and international processes and sets itself goals to promote equal opportunities and diversity, occupational health and safety, integration of migrants and people with disabilities, fair pay and reconciliation of work and family life.
Equal opportunity
As an employer we tolerate no discrimination for reasons of gender or sexual orientation, religion or ideology, ethnic origin, nationality, disability or age. This is laid out in Biotest's mandatory Code of Ethics and Business Conduct. We value our employees and their contribution to the company's success. We promote equal opportunity. Biotest fills open positions based on skill, performance and potential, and job adverts are written gender neutral. We keep management continuously informed of legal requirements.
It is also part of our identity to treat our business partners in the same manner.
We protect the rights of our employees and prevent any form of discrimination.
Diversity management and integration of migrants and employees with disabilities
For Biotest, living diversity is a basic prerequisite for remaining creative, adaptable and competitive. Our employees come from 48 countries of origin, different cultures and generations, each with their own values, attitudes and life experiences. They also belong to different age groups and therefore bring a wealth of different perspectives, experiences and skills with them.
Biotest integrates people with mental and physical disabilities as part of vocational training and student internships. We also create individual framework and working conditions within the company for such employees.
Refugees are supported, for example, with special language courses as part of their vocational training.
Equal pay for men and women
An important aspect of our corporate culture is to recognise the individual performances of our employees, including with appropriate remuneration in line with the market. We do not differentiate between genders, so there are no systematic differences between the remuneration of our female and male employees. Beyond remuneration structures, we are particularly interested in expanding the share of women in management positions.
Health management and occupational safety
The health of our employees is their most precious resource, and protecting it is therefore our ultimate obligation. This not only applies to the working environment of our employees, but also to their private lives. Our long-term goal is 'zero accidents'. We therefore work constantly to further improve occupational safety. For example, we recently set up a training centre and focused on topics relating to the rescue of people, container inspection, fire and explosion protection.
Occupational safety and health are documented in binding company agreements. These concern, among other things, occupational health care for employees, difficult work conditions, on-call service, work hours, addiction assistance, and occupational integration management as well as provision of work clothing. In addition, Biotest supports smoking cessation.
A company health management service actively promotes the health and well-being of our employees. Lessons and training in the area of health are an everyday occurrence, as is the regular Biotest Health Day covering different topics each year, such as vital screenings, mobility checks. Relaxation techniques at work, brain food, digital detoxing or measures to strengthen the immune system. Health Day was also not able to take place in 2022 due to the Corona pandemic. Instead, however, the online training options were expanded, e.g. the ‘Achte auf Dich!’ [Take care of yourself!] programme to strengthen mental health. First aid training courses, trainings around accident prevention regulations and workstation assessments by the occupational medicine service are regularly offered.
Work-life balance
Work-life balance is not merely a recent social issue for us. We are aware that we can only benefit from and maintain the abilities and talents of our employees if we as an employer strongly support their ability to manage the challenges of balancing their professional and personal lives.
As a family-friendly company, we therefore not only support our employees with flexible work relationships with a good balance between work, family and free time. Our company childcare centre BioNest, which opened in 2015 with 1,400 sq. m for up to 90 children, was judged by the Mayor of the town of Dreieich to be the nicest childcare in the area. Small groups ensure that the carers are able to meet the children's individual needs. Our employees value the diverse activities offered their children, and the fact that the childcare is only closed between Christmas and New Year's. Its hours of operation from 6 AM to 6 PM on work days is our way of contributing to the work-life balance of our employees with small children.
We are conscious of the importance of flexible work options to increase performance, motivation and productivity. This does not only include our offer of numerous, individually tailored part-time work, flexible work hours and self-managed flexitime models for employees which are not covered by collective bargaining agreements. ‘Arbeitswelten@Biotest’ [workingworlds@Biotest] is evidence of our trust-based workplace philosophy, which focuses on performance instead of presence and is able to make a further contribution to our personal flexibility of our employees through situation-specific options for mobile working.
Employee rights
Biotest meets nationally and internationally recognised employee rights standards, and promotes the participation of employees in the company's sustainability management.
The vast majority of Biotest employees in 2022 were employed in member states of the European Union. UN human rights standards and ILO (International Labour Organisation) basic labour standards are already anchored in the law in these countries. The four basic principles of the ILO are freedom of association and collective bargaining, the elimination of forced labour, the abolition of child labour and the prohibition of discrimination in employment and occupation. Biotest implements these standards.
At Biotest, the participation rights for employees and employee representatives are also regulated by the German Works Constitution Act [Betriebsverfassungsgesetz, BetrVG]. Through this, for example, extensive information and participation rights are ensured for employees through exempted members of the Works Council, the committee for senior executives and the representation of employees on the Supervisory Board. Regular constructive dialogue with employee representatives takes place for all topics that pertain to these rights. This ensures a balanced consensus on key issues within the company. This is one of the reasons why we do not see any significant risks in the area of employee issues in the context of our business activities.
Fair treatment and a partnership relationship with employees is for us the foundation and prerequisite for long-term business success. Biotest therefore wants to provide employees with a work environment where they are happy to work and able to develop. Employees are surveyed at regular intervals, so as to better understand their expectations and apply these to company policy in a structured manner.
A variable remuneration system that supports the overarching company goals of economic efficiency in the use of resources and profitability has been implemented.
As already explained, our main products are directly sustainable and sustainability is a characterising part of our self-understanding at Biotest. Therefore we actually do not consider sustainability management as an isolated or separate initiative which we have to encourage staff to embrace separately. Nevertheless, in 2019 we launched a new initiative in the field of climate protection for and with our trainees: we have declared them to be 'energy scouts' with the task of identifying and evaluating possible energy and CO2 savings throughout the company. Their concept of how waste, costs and emissions can be saved at the same time as acquiring highly purified water with an amortisation period of less than 2 years was not only chosen by the IHK Frankfurt / Offenbach as the best project in the chamber district, but has now also been implemented in the company.
Likewise, we naturally support initiatives such as the "Lifesavers - Climate Savers" project through the active participation of all employees in this project.