We see human rights as fundamental principles for protecting people’s dignity and ensuring freedom and respect both in our own operations, in the companies with whom we work, and in the communities where we operate. Our commitment to upholding human rights is outlined in our 'Sustainability commitment', 'Global human rights policy', 'Global labour and employment rights policy', 'Stakeholder engagement policy', and 'Just transition policy'. Our 'Global human rights policy' aligns with the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights (UNGPs), the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the International Bill of Human Rights, and the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Declaration on Fundamental Principles & Rights at Work. The policy explicitly highlights our dedication to ensuring freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, the elimination of forced, trafficked, or compulsory labour, the effective abolition of child labour, and the elimination of discrimination in employment and occupation, among other critical issues.

Our annual global People Matter survey aims at retrieving employees’ perspectives and opinions on satisfaction and motivation across almost 70 questions. The themes assessed within this anonymous survey include the degree of trust, openness, and transparency felt by our employees with regards to collaboration and the management bodies and the level of satisfaction within several aspects of the employees’ work life and conditions, e.g. job content, physical working conditions, compensation and employment terms, development opportunities, workload, stress, inclusion and diversity, and potential harassment at the workplace. The results are shared with the Group Executive Team for their strategic planning of priorities, activities, and follow-up actions. People leaders use the results within their respective teams to enable dialogues about potential improvement initiatives, ensuring a safe and inclusive working environment where everyone can thrive, perform, and grow. Another activity deployed during 2024 for gathering perspectives of our own workforce has been using pulse surveys, especially within the areas of equality, diversity, and inclusion (ED&I) and well-being. Pulse surveys are initiated by people leaders as a way to ensure that recurring surveys aiming to check how the team is doing in regard to different matters are carried out. Results are used as a springboard for further dialogue on important themes such as physical and mental well-being, workload, harassment in the workplace, trust, transparency, etc. As an example, the Group Executive Team has carried out global surveys during 2024 to check the temperature throughout the organisation during periods with organisational changes and to take the results into account when planning strategies, priorities, and communication going forward. Additionally, we have established an easily accessible site on our company intranet that outlines various options for employee representation on both global and local levels. These include various channels for employees to voice their opinions and engage both with other colleagues and with management. Such options include HR business partners, occupational health and safety representatives, different local works councils, cooperation committees, employment relations representatives, and personal development dialogues. Engagement and employee representation through more formal bodies, such as work councils and employment relations representatives, are generally regulated by local legislation or locally agreed with the respective employee representation body. The frequency of engagement is both regularly recurring meetings and extraordinary ones, summoned to discuss important topics related to the workforce. In addition, we have the Ørsted IN networks (employee resource groups), which collectively create an online hub, supporting an inclusive culture within the organisation. The inclusion networks represent different groups across our organisation, e.g. within race and ethnicity, gender, LGBTQ+, age, and disability. They are for anyone who identifies with one of the groups, and who supports the equality and inclusion of that group. Allies are encouraged to join networks to show their support and to expand their knowledge about inclusion of diversity. Moreover, different Viva Engage channels are made available to our employees, serving the purpose of creating global informal dialogues across our organisation on different topics related to our own workforce. Employees can freely comment and ask direct questions to our management via the Viva Engage channels, hosted by different management representatives or by other employees.