Accountability at Dell starts with living our values each and every day.From ethics to diversity, human rights to privacy, the actions of our employees are key to achieving our corporate accountability goals. Our definition of corporate accountability encompasses governance, ethics, diversity, health and safety, and global citizenship.
This past year, we carried out numerous activities in the area of corporate accountability, including implementing new board election procedures. Our efforts in ethics, diversity, and employee health and safety continue to meet industry-leading performance levels. We received numerous awards last year in these areas including top ten listings in both FORTUNE magazine’s Most Admired Companies and Business Ethics magazine’s Best Corporate Citizens. Last year also marked progress in deepening social responsibility in our supply chain. We tested our Business Process Improvement (BPI) methodology with several large Tier 1 suppliers to improve their social and environmental performance.
| Corporate Accountability Values | 2007 Corporate Accountability Actions |
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| Governance | Implemented higher standards for electing board members. |
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| Ethical Behavior | Instituted 100 percent Compliance training; held numerous training courses and awareness. |
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| Stakeholders Engagement | Convened with stakeholders in New York, London and Oakland to learn about their best practices and prevailing issues. |
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| Support Diversity | Increased spending with diverse suppliers. |
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| Workplace Health and Safety | Measured recordable workplace injury and lost time rates well below published industry averages. |
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| Employee Health and Wellness | Developed a 2007 HIV/AIDS awareness prevention strategy. |
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| Global Citizenship | Worked to develop EICC tools and tested our Business Process Improvement (BPI) methodology to address supply chain labor and environmental issues. |
Despite the positive results, we recognize there are many challenges and opportunities ahead of us in living up to our aspiration to be a leader in this area.
Global Citizenship offers perhaps our greatest future opportunity. Dell, along with other electronics industry leaders, collaborated in recent years to develop the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct (EICC). This coming year we will implement the EICC more fully and ask our supply chain to meet several challenging targets.
