University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

225
marital affairs and on financial matters. This reflects that the company is not just
concerned with the employees’ proficiency at work, but it is also concerned with the
well‐being of its employees. The company recognises the fact that feedback from the
employees is necessary in order to make improvements in the working environment
or in the training courses provided, thus there are questionnaires or surveys that
focuses on finding the employees’ real and most important needs, and the CSR
Survey that tries to measure the satisfaction of its employees and also to learn from
them the ways to improve the workplace environment. Furthermore, even in financial
difficulties, it seems that the Danfoss Group at the very least would endeavour to find
alternatives for its employees, as exemplified in the case of Slovakia in 2007.
Therefore, there is significant evidence that show that the Danfoss Group views its
employees as assets and thus considers the matters of employee relations seriously.
The Modes employed within the Employee Relations wave are largely addressed
with “Codes & Policies” and “Volunteering”. The former one shows the high level of
institutionalization of employee relations in the Danfoss Group while the latter one
corresponds with the Danfoss Group’s culture of encouraging participation of its
employee in its initiatives. The “Foundation” mode is also an important means in this
wave, as it goes beyond the employees’ career needs and deals with their social life
beyond work, in issues such as divorce, children’s education and financial difficulties.
With regards to partnership, the same as in the first wave, activities were mostly
related to governmental projects. In order to provide a better overview of Danfoss’
CSR practice, the following web charts summarize the frequency of different modes
that are adopted by each wave in two time periods, 1999 to 2002 and 2003 to 2007
respectively. The year 2002 is chosen as the dividing point as it is in 2002 that
Danfoss joined UN Global Compact (refer to figure 2).