Vilmorin & Cie - Annual report 2017-2018

ANNUAL REPORT Vilmorin & Cie 117 2017-2018 4 15-16 16-17 17-18 % Payroll 1.27 1.01 1.00 Training cost for each employee trained (in euros) 828 606 597 % of employees trained 65.01 73.28 72.94 Total number of hours training 109,865 129,257 125,959 Average number of days per colleague trained (1) 3.75 3.84 3.71 (1) On the basis of seven hours training per day. Most of the training hours were fairly equally split between the improvement of professional skills (25.46%), learning foreign languages (24.96%) and health and safety (22.47%). Management training represented 12.26% of the training hours. 4.3.1.5. Limagrain Academy: training and skills development Limagrain Academy was founded in 2013, with the aim of contributing to the development of key skills for the Group, proposing training to acquire the skills, aptitudes and capacities necessary for working successfully, in coherence with the Group’s fundamentals. Limagrain Academy is not a substitute for the training activities and specific development in each Business Unit. The complementarity of the training programs in the Business Units, and those organized by the Group, will help to prepare the company and its employees for tomorrow’s challenges. With this in mind, Limagrain Academy’s aim is to create learning opportunities for the employees from the different Business Units, countries and cultures, while encouraging the feeling of belonging to the Group, especially through the use of collective training sessions. In 2017-2018, the number of employees trained increased by 8% compared with fiscal year 2016-2017 showing a significant effort to develop training. In order to pursue the internationalization of Limagrain Academy in 2017-2018, 58% of the face-to-face training was delivered in French (-15% compared with 2016-2017), 37% in English (+10%) and 5% in Turkish. Limagrain Academy maintained its strong international presence, with 38% of participants outside France altogether, including 10% of participants in South America to support the development of the local Business Unit. In order to propose high-level management training, in collaboration with INSEAD, Limagrain Academy developed the program “Advanced Leadership” enabling 25 managers and executive managers from several different countries to develop their leadership in particular through coaching, virtual sessions and face-to-face sessions. 4.3.2. Expressing and disseminating business ethics Business ethics often boils down to a list of good practices scattered throughout the company’s operations. For Vilmorin & Cie, the essential thing is to rethink the subject of ethics globally, in all its activities, in order to create spaces for dialogue and points to ponder that will ask the right questions and highlight the dilemmas between what we perceive in the short term and what would be conceivable and desirable in the longer term. Defined as such, the Group’s ethical approach opens up avenues for progress while enabling it to assume its individual and collective responsibilities. Situations involving an ethical appreciation rarely recur in the same way and vary widely according to the cultures, countries, professions and stakeholders involved. To respond to this question, the Group has set up an approach and tools to encourage employees to think about such issues. The objective is to encourage the spirit of responsibility with each individual, and to rely on collective intelligence to learn to manage ambiguities, complexity and interpret rules with discernment in any situation. The aim is to arbitrate between complying with these rules, which must be adhered to uncompromisingly and taking into account the often-contradictory requirements of all stakeholders; to initiate a critical, constructive and positive, individual and collective capacity, since it is unthinkable to isolate this type of decision from the social bond that binds the Group to its communities. It is with this in mind that the Code of Conduct was designed: to structure the fundamental principles and commitments that the Group wishes to insure that all its employees, regardless of their businesses and countries, comply with in all its entities. 4.3.2.1. The principle of questioning at the heart of the Code of Conduct The Code of Conduct specifies the various rules and regulations in force that Vilmorin & Cie's employees must comply with, while inviting them to adopt an individual approach to questioning. It is composed of five principles intended to guide employees by providing them with ethical references useful in the exercise of their profession and the control of related risks: the image and reputation of the Company, the assets of the Company, conflicts of interest, non-public financial information, intellectual property rights. 4.3. Conducting activities in an ethical, sustainable and effective manner Social, environmental and societal INFORMATION