www.se.com Schneider Electric Universal Registration Document 2021 184 Chapter 2 – Sustainable development 2.5 Great People making Schneider Electric a great company 2.5.4.4 Benefits Company provided benefits represent a considerable business commitment by Schneider Electric everywhere in the world. Schneider ensures that all employee benefits are locally and globally compliant, as well as market relevant. Because employee benefit plans vary significantly between countries due to different levels of social, tax, and legal regulations, Schneider Electric’s benefits portfolio is primarily country-driven and aims at providing similar benefits within a country territory. 2.5.4.4.1 Global benefit standards Schneider Electric regularly reviews compliance with its global benefit policies and principles to ensure that its inclusive global benefit standards are delivered for everyone, everywhere. These standards cover healthcare, family leave, and life cover and are audited in the SSI. One of Schneider Electric’s underlying benefit objectives is to ensure all its employees are equipped to manage their basic health and well-being and to provide adequate security to employees and their dependents. Health and well-being are embedded in the Schneider Electric strategic people priorities and contribute to its sustainability mission. The Group is committed to provide its employees access to a comprehensive well-being at work program – translated into a dual standard of access to healthcare and well- being training programs (detailed further in subsection “Well-being in our DNA”, page 174). Access to an inclusive and comprehensive standard of healthcare coverage (outpatient, hospitalization, key health risks/chronic conditions, maternity, children) is defined by local regulations and employment agreements. Schneider Electric also supports its employees with personal time off at critical life stages and this is fully deployed in 100% of countries as detailed below. In addition, the Group commits to provide financial security to employee dependents, in the event of an employee’s death, in the form of a minimum standard of life assurance coverage of at least a multiple equivalent to one year’s salary. Schneider Electric has reaffirmed and enhanced its existing global benefit standards outlined above for all our employees worldwide, for the duration of the COVID-19 crisis. This included a global extension of care leave from one to two weeks for our employees to care for their dependents diagnosed with COVID-19. Global Family Leave Policy As part of being a caring and responsible employer, Schneider Electric launched its global family leave policy along with care leave in 2017. With its industry-leading Global Family Leave Policy, Schneider Electric supports employees with personal time at critical life stages and empowers everyone to manage their “unique life and work” so that they can be at their best. While the Group’s countries have flexibility to define eligibility and policy details per statutory/market requirements, the policy sets global minimum standards: • Fully paid parental leave (primary parent – 12 weeks, secondary parent – 2 weeks); • Care leave (for sick/elderly relatives – 1 week); and • Bereavement leave (1 week). All benefits eligible employees have access to this global policy. 2.5.4.4.2 Employee share ownership The Worldwide Employee Share Ownership Plan (WESOP) is one of the Group’s recurring key annual reward programs, offering employees across the world an opportunity to become owners of the Company, at preferred conditions. WESOP is strongly ingrained in the Group’s culture, as a cultural and reward differentiator with a positive impact on engagement, attraction and retention. Schneider Electric has strongly developed and reinforced its offer over the years in order to build a sustainable group of employee shareholders reflecting the workforce diversity, to create a strong feeling of belonging, and to link employees to the performance of the Company, acting like owners of Schneider Electric. In that spirit, WESOP has become part of the Group sustainability commitments towards its 2025 roadmap (SSE #19). In participating countries, eligible employees have the chance to participate. All eligible country teams are collaborating to deploy WESOP and they made its success possible over the years. In 2021 the Group successfully reintroduced WESOP in 40 countries for the 25 th anniversary, after cancelling the plan in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, achieving 59% subscription rate, a higher rate than in 2019 at 50%. As of December 31, 2021, the employee shareholding represented 3.6% of Schneider Electric SE’s capital and 6.3% of the voting rights. 77% of the Group employee shareholders were located outside of France, of which 13% are in China, 15% in India, and 10% in the US. This also includes employee shareholding resulting from the long-term incentives grants.
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