- We are here for our customers
- We care about the natural environment
- We care about PGE Group’s sustainable and safe development
Organisational Culture
We are a big company, employing approx. 38 000 people. For such a large organisation, setting out shared values for an exceptionally diverse group of employees is a great challenge.
The main document in the area of ethics and compliance is the PGE Group Code of Ethics adopted in 2016, which constitutes an overarching declaration and basis for other internal regulations.
The document identifies and defines the common, key ethical values and standards of the PGE Group that the organisation expects from all employees and other persons performing work for the PGE Group.
It is a fundamental document in terms of ethics and legal compliance. It constitutes an overarching statement and a basis for other internal regulations. The Code of Ethics introduces a standard for relations within the company and between PGE and its stakeholders regarding transparent, honest and ethical operations. All employees and other persons, at every level, in every situation in which they act on behalf of the company, are obliged to act according to the values and principles described in the Code of Ethics.
The Code provides a benchmark for decision-making and a set of standards and behaviours. It draws attention to human rights obligations by, among other things, emphasising the acceptance of all diversity, understood in terms of origin, gender, sexual orientation, culture, age and marital status, as well as religious and political beliefs, or membership or non-membership of social and professional organisations.
The Code of Ethics emphasises that no form of discrimination is tolerated. The Code indicates and defines common key values and ethical principles of PGE Group, serving as a foundation for the organisation’s operations and the achievement of strategic objectives at PGE Group.
The values of PGE Group are Partnership, Development, Responsibility.
The 12 principles of the Code of Ethics fall under four thematic blocks
- We care about relations with business partners
- We care about relations with local communities
- We built trust by credibly informing about our activities
- We care about friendly working conditions
- We improve ourselves and we are proactive, we show initiative
- Employee safety and health are our priorities
- We compete fairly
- We do not tolerate corruption or unfair conduct
- We handle company information responsibly
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 convinced 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.
Code of Ethics - values and rules in everyday work
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 were 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 and involvement of our internal trainers dedicated to best prepare and conduct training.
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. These training sessions are conducted entirely by Group employees.
Ensuring that employees and other persons performing work for and on behalf of PGE Group companies have access to information on PGE Group’s Code of Ethics – its values and common principles – is an important element of the compliance system. The President of the Management Board of PGE SA, Wojciech Dąbrowski, is directly involved in promoting and implementing the provisions of the Code of Ethics into the life of the organisation – as the person responsible on the side of the Management Board for the Compliance area. Translating the values and principles of the Code into the practical language of attitudes and behaviour in specific situations is one of the due diligence tools for the actual application of the Code of Ethics and other compliance policies in the organisation. Examples of appropriate behaviour and attitudes are systematically and consistently introduced into internal regulation records, training in operational areas, management and managerial communication with employees or internal communications.
Among the qualitative results of the introduction and application of the Code of Ethics is increasing employee and stakeholder awareness of the benefits of acting with integrity and drawing attention to the relevance of ethical issues. The „Knowledge of PGE Group’s Values and Principles of the Code of Ethics” survey conducted in December 2022 shows that 93% of the Group’s employees believe that the current values meet the needs of the organisation, and as many as 96% of employees feel that the values and principles are in line with their personal code of ethical integrity. More than 85% of employees feel that the principles of employee safety and health are a priority for PGE Group and that corruption and dishonest behaviour are not tolerated in PGE and that it is most important for the organisation to take care of the sustainable and safe development of PGE Group.
Communication on ethical issues is carried out on an ongoing basis.
The text of the Code of Ethics (and the Code of Conduct for Business Partners of the PGE Capital Group companies) is available to employees and stakeholders on the websites of the PGE Group and the particular companies. Posters informing about the values and principles are available in each of the companies, together with information on channels for reporting non-compliance. We also maintain a page dedicated to the Code of Ethics in the Compliance section of the company intranet.
In 2022, the values and principles of PGE Group Code of Ethics were reminded to employees through available internal channels: on PGE Group Intranet, in the „Under the Umbrella” magazine, in PGE Group Newsletter, in the HR Newsletter and the Health and Safety Newsletter, as well as on monitors in the PGE SA headquarters.
On the occasion of the sixth anniversary of the adoption of the Code of Ethics, a number of activities were carried out to draw attention to the benefits of acting with integrity. The campaign included: the presentation of a new graphic design of the Code of Ethics and other Compliance policies in line with the slogan „We lead in green change”, a competition for employees of PGE Group companies, articles on the intranet and in the internal magazine „Under the Umbrella” involving executives and managers, and a film summarising the sixth anniversary of the Code of Ethics in PGE Group.
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.
Adopting the Code and clearly communicating the rules contained therein has a straightforward objective: support PGE Group’s Strategy 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, ove 2 000 training hours were conducted in 21 PGE Group companies with compliance structures in 2022. 35 620 employees had been trained and percentage of employees trained amounted to 97%.
Principles of cooperation with business partners
The rules governing cooperation with business partners are defined first of all in the Code of Ethics of the PGE Capital Group, which is a set of values and principles in force in the entire PGE Group. Among other things, it defines the PGE Group’s approach to building business partnerships.
For more on the rules of working with business partners, see Cooperation with business partners.