The German chemical and consumer goods company with a Beauty Care portfolio that includes such brands as Schwarzkopf, Dial, and Syoss, has launched a global solidarity program to support employees, customers, and affected communities.
International news from Düsselforf, Germany, as Henkel announced a worldwide solidarity plan to support employees, customers and communities facing the global COVID-19 pandemic. The program consists of generous charitable donations as well as farsighted industrial, business, and financial initiatives to offer the economy support, starting from the bottom up.
The plan starts out with the Fritz Henkel Foundation dontaing one million euros directly to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN) Foundation to help provide frontline workers and laboratories in all aspects of fighting the spread and cure of this disease, including providing protective equipment and ICU maintenance, diagnostic and data collection/analysis facilities, and even research to develop vaccines and therapeutics. Another one million euros will go to a variety of organisations to support the personal commitment and voluntary engagement of employees fighting the crisis.
Henkel, through its citizenship team, also has plans to distribute 5 million units of personal and household hygiene products globally, including hand sanitizers, soaps and protective equipment, detergents, disinfectants and more to charity organizations, local authorities and partners around the world. Then, with a view to meeting ever-increasing demands, Henkel will be ramping up the output of such necessary products at selected production sites.
On an entirely different level, there is also a farsighted plan to improve payment terms for selected small and mid-sized hairdressers to support them during the current challenging situation. As many of these businesses are often facing total shut-downs in may areas, these initiatives may prove vital when it comes time to reboot the worldwide economy.
Since the onset of the crisis, Henkel has addressedthe situation proactively through its crisis management teams on country, regional and global levels. The primary objective of the crisis management is to do everything possible to ensure the safety of employees, customers and business partners and to maintain operations under these challenging circumstances.
“At Henkel, we are committed to help addressing this unprecedented challenge. In line with our values, we want to make a contribution through a comprehensive global solidarity program,”said Carsten Knobel, Chief Executive Officer of Henkel.“We stand united in our fight against the pandemic, striving to protectour employees and their jobs, serving our customers and supporting the communities in which we operate.”
“I would also like to thank our global and local crisis teams which have been activesince the coronavirus began to spread. For our employees who continue to work on site to maintain our operations we have take next measures to reduce infection risks. For example,strict protocols in case of suspected infections,increased hygiene, separating shifts and reducing the number of employees working on site by requesting home office work wherever possible.”
