Employees and Community
We support these Sustainable Development Goals
with our measures:
BPW lives a culture of equal opportunities: The fact that all people in the company can trust each other and respect each other is a high priority. Every employee has the right to fair, polite and respectful treatment by supervisors, employees and colleagues. No discrimination, harassment or insults will be tolerated.
Furthermore, all employees are treated equally, regardless of their gender, age, skin colour, culture, ethnic origin, sexual identity, physical constitution, religious affiliation or world view. It goes without saying that internationally recognised human rights are respected.
Employees
Trainees
Nationalities
- Women 13.08%
- Men 86.92%
- Employees with disabilities 6.6%
From team building to exam preparation
Young people shape the future! As a family-owned company, BPW puts a lot of emphasis on the training of junior staff and wants to give them not only the best professional start, but also the best possible support for their personal development. Thus, among other things, personality development training is offered, as well as preventive health care programmes and team building formats. With “#BPW-AZUBI-TV”, trainees produce a video format on their own responsibility, which is published on the BPW Instagram channel.
BPW continues to maintain educational cooperations with other companies and facilitates internships or work placements abroad during the apprenticeship. Special examination preparation courses and regular on-the-job training help to optimally deepen what has been learned. After successful completion of the apprenticeship, extra-occupational studies or master programmes are possible.
By the summer of 2022, 78 trainees have been supervised and are employed in 17 professions. In August 2022, 33 new talents started their first year of training in 14 professions. The newcomers are welcomed every year with a Welcome Week, get to know each other and the company – and are prepared with a lot for their learning time together. As a training company, BPW has been proving its qualities for decades. Public acknowledgements also bear witness to this: For the fourth time in a row, the company is one of “Germany’s best training companies”.
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Supporting the change from school to work
What happens after leaving school? The ‘KAoA’ initiative (Kein Abschluss ohne Anschluss, which roughly translates as ‘no school leaving qualification without a next step’)helps young people in North Rhine-Westphalia to answer this question. BPW has supported the state government’s campaign on the transition from school to working life for many years. To ensure that this can also take place in the pandemic, a new online format was established. With digital career orientation days, BPW offered interested parties the opportunity to learn about seven occupational profiles such as industrial mechanic, tool & die mechanic, technical product designer or warehouse logistics specialist. Apprentices from the company presented these jobs by showing live in front of the camera what tasks they perform. In addition, they answered questions about their everyday working life during an online appointment.
‘KAoA’ is an action week that always takes place in spring. BPW also offers workshops on career orientation and job application training for students throughout the year.
Learning logistics at school
School not only lays the foundations for a broad general knowledge, it is also where individual interests can be discovered. At the Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Gymnasium in Wiehl, with which BPW has been cooperating for several years, students can, for example, gear their learning profile more towards social economics and engineering. They then take part in extracurricular events such as the “Social Economy” project course, which is closely supported by BPW through workshops and internships. It is designed to support the young people in discovering their professional talents and imparts, among other things, knowledge about the structural and procedural organisation of a company and about supply chain management. In addition, the company also supports pupils from the Gymnasium in their project work.
BPW trainees and trainers also pass on their knowledge to the pupils as part of a KURS partnership, where they demonstrate how logistics works in practice. Because it is often not very visible to the general public. But those who can take a look behind the scenes of the industry are often pleasantly surprised at how exciting the sector is. With a three-part digital workshop series, BPW teaches the basics of the world of logistics, scheduling and warehouse logistics as well as shipping and outgoing goods. Two trainees studying logistics management in the dual system report on professions such as logistics manager or forwarding and logistics services specialist, and experts from the company use real processes to show how logistics works and answer questions about it.
Employee Health
Promoting health sustainably
To be healthy, people need balance in many areas of life. BPW has built its occupational health management on four strong cornerstones in order to optimally support the most important issues in the lives of employees at work: Family, Social, Work and Exercise. Under the headings BPW ActiveFamily, BPW ActiveSocial, BPW ActiveJob and BPW ActiveSports, the company is committed to far more than the occupational safety and environmental protection measures required by law for employers. The holistic concept is designed to promote the health and well-being of all employees in the company systematically and in the long term. Above all, their personal responsibility is encouraged so that they become active for their health themselves – because this has the best effect in the long term.
Click on our Active logos for more Information
Medical care at the workplace
With its own company medical department, BPW can offer its employees good medical care close to the workplace. In a well-equipped practice on the company premises, employees can come to the regularly scheduled preventive medical check-ups and fitness examinations and, if necessary, also for health complaints. Wide-ranging check-up examinations are also part of the range of services offered by the company doctor and occupational health management, which can be followed by further measures implemented internally or externally if necessary.
The company doctor advises BPW on all aspects of health protection, ergonomics, infection control and also on personal protective equipment and protective measures. In cooperation with the company health management, a training centre is operated and campaigns and courses relating to workplace health promotion are planned and carried out.
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.’ This guiding principle of the WHO for defining the term ‘health’ serves as our orientation in strategic planning. Together with the company health management as well as other cross-sectional departments, our goal is to establish a sustainable corporate culture. In particular, we want to create an awareness among managers that employee health in all its facets is a joint task and how they can address it in their daily work. In doing so, we rely, among other things, on the “House of Work Ability” model.”
When new machines are purchased or replaced, the department advises on health aspects – likewise when new workplaces are set up or changes to existing ones are implemented. The company doctor advises on the use of new chemical substances and on the selection and use of personal protective equipment, as well as on the reassignment of jobs or the reintegration of employees who have fallen ill. He regularly participates in the company inspections, the occupational safety committee and the health working group, in which actions for employee health are discussed. Of course, the medical specialists are also on site when first aid is needed, for example, in the case of minor injuries and disorders, but also in the case of acute illnesses, accidents at work or on the way to work, or chronic illnesses.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the medical department has been involved in the crisis team for pandemic response. This meets regularly to discuss measures for risk assessment and infection protection. Advice on vaccination and the vaccination itself was an important focus in 2021: 1,812 first, second and booster vaccinations against Corona were carried out, as well as 186 flu vaccinations. The fact that these services are offered at the workplace saves employees extra appointments at their GP surgeries.
The big goal: 0 accidents
In the past three years, the number of reportable accidents has fallen by 27 percent ¬to 10.9 reportable accidents per 1 million working hours in 2021 – the same as in 2020. As part of the “0 Accidents Initiative”, BPW is aiming for no accidents at all. When an incident occurs, in 90 percent of cases the behaviour of the injured person is the cause. Among other things, BPW counteracts this with training courses that teach managers how to firmly anchor the topic of “Safety First” in their work and in all teams. The training sessions had to be paused during the Corona period, but they have been taking place again since May 2022.
There are around 260 first aiders working at BPW. In 2021, 7 first aid training courses took place, which teach the most important knowledge and skills to help injured people.
meldepflichtige Unfälle je 1 Mio. Arbeitsstunden
2019
2020
2021
Compliance
Making legal requirements transparent
Since 2018, all legal requirements in the areas of environmental protection, occupational safety or competition law have been bundled via the GEORG (“court-proof organisation”) software module and made transparent to those responsible. In 2021, all duties from the permits relevant to water law were transferred to GEORG and assigned to the responsible managers. In 2022, the area of “foreign trade and customs law” was also integrated.
In addition, BPW has introduced an anonymous whistleblowing system in accordance with the requirements of the European Whistleblowing Directive, which makes it possible to receive and clarify suspicious cases of legal and regulatory violations, particularly regarding non-compliance with laws such as the General Equal Treatment Act, possible criminal or administrative offences such as corruption, disloyalty, fraud, theft or cartel violations.
Social Involvement
Medical help for truck drivers
When truck drivers fall ill while driving their vehicle, it is often particularly difficult for them to find medical help quickly. Finding a nearby practice at short notice and making an appointment there can be a challenge – not to mention parking a 40-tonne truck nearby as well. As part of the DocStop initiative, BPW’s company medical department has also been treating truck drivers who need medical help on the road since 2018. Truckers can use the uniform Europe-wide hotline 00800 03627867 to ask for the nearest DocStop location. Or they can use one of the numerous driver apps on their smartphone, where the locations are also listed – including information about parking facilities on site.
Ralf Merkelbach, Head of Key Account Management Large Fleets Europe at BPW, says: “Truck drivers literally keep our economy moving. That deserves respect, but above all it also deserves concrete support from the business community. We are pleased to be able to make a small contribution by providing medical support to truck drivers.” DocStop Chairman Joachim Fehrenkötter welcomes the commitment: “The fact that companies like BPW also open their company doctor’s surgeries to truck drivers should set an example.
Further improve the driver image
Drivers deserve more appreciation, better working conditions and better training and qualification. The association “Pro Driver-Image” campaigns for all these aspects and wants to fundamentally improve the image of road haulage. To this end, it wants to raise awareness of the environment in which drivers work and live. And it wants to achieve a better treatment of the skilled workers of industry, trade, the transport sector and the population. Alongside the BGL and other associations, organisations and companies, BPW is one of the founding members of the association, which has been active since 2019. The patron of “Pro Driver Image” is the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure.
Vaccination campaign on motorways
All those who are operationally active in transport and logistics do a very important job: they ensure the supply of society and the economy. For this, they deserve support and, above all, fair and appropriate working conditions. The #LogistikHilft initiative, which was founded during the pandemic, is committed to doing just that. As an open platform for transport and logistics service providers and their customers, it promotes existing aid campaigns and launches new ones. For example, a large vaccination campaign directly on the motorway, where drivers could easily be protected against COVID-19 on the road. BPW supported this campaign and thus made many vaccinations possible.
#LogistikHilft will be continued in 2022. All stakeholders from trade, industry, haulage companies or rest and car station operators, as well as companies and associations, are still called upon to participate.
To the website
Working for a good cause
Supporting the region and its people – that’s what the trainees at BPW want to do. “It was immediately clear to us that we would be taking part in the Trainee Social Day again this year,” says Maren Steeger from the BPW Group Academy. This day always takes place in September. In 2021, BPW took part for the third time in a row. The trainees are called upon to support a local organisation or institution on “Trainee Social Day”: in 2021, the 30 BPW trainees from the first year of training were at the Johannes Hospice in Wiehl and at a children’s day care centre.
With a lot of motivation and strong hands, they worked in the garden, beautified the facilities and built, polished and painted benches and fences. The facilities were very happy about the support – and the trainees had a lot of fun with their commitment. The day was set up as part of the Industry Acceptance Initiative by the Cologne Chamber of Industry and Commerce. The initiative not only aims to promote charitable work, but also to highlight the importance of industrial companies for the region.
New fire truck has proven its worth
The company’s core unit has 13 active members, who are reinforced by 4 additional members from other units. These BPW employees work for other fire brigades, but support the plant team as so-called daytime alarmists when they are needed and called out on operations.
BPW is a member of the plant fire brigade association and thus receives specialist information on risks and fire protection topics with an industrial focus. After basic and advanced training had to be largely suspended in 2020 due to the pandemic, it was possible to resume it in 2021. In the first half of the year, the theoretical training parts took place online wherever possible. In the second half of the year, classroom training increasingly took place again.
BPW is committed to the transport and logistics sector as well as to social and societal issues through its membership in clubs, associations and through cooperation:
