In February 2023, we announced the Samsung Electronics Global Human Rights Principles (hereafter referred to as the Policy), which outline our commitment to uphold human rights in accordance with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). The Policy is our promise to uphold all human rights, in line with international human rights standards, to prevent human rights violations, and provide effective remedies to those who may suffer harm as a result of our business activities. The Policy provides a framework for the implementation of our commitment to uphold human rights. The Policy includes our due diligence approach and cover our salient human rights impacts, and apply to our stakeholders, employees, suppliers, and business partners.
Samsung Electronics conducts annual human rights training for all employees as well as various employee groups to ensure they understand their rights and respect human rights in all aspects of business activities. Samsung Electronics believes that building and strengthening employee capacities plays an important role in proactively identifying, preventing, and mitigating potential human rights issues across the value chain.
In 2018, we started human rights training for employees. In 2020, we developed the training system targeting different groups and teamed up with Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) to create the training content for each employee group. We roll out human rights training for general employees, employees assigned to human rights duties, and human rights champions.
We conduct annual employee human rights training at DX Division’s global business sites, which include production, sales, and research centers. Employees at production sites are trained offline in the relevant local language featuring localized examples. Meanwhile, office-based workers receive online training. In 2023, 95.5% of employees completed the training, with the completion rate for online and offline training at 93.2% and 97.2%, respectively.
We offer additional online training for employees in positions who are more exposed to human rights challenges in their duties, such as Human Resources, Security, General Affairs, and Purchasing. In 2021, we began training for employees particularly more exposed to human rights challenges, such as forced labor, enhancing their ability to prevent violations. In particular, for those in purchasing, training emphasized human rights due diligence in supply chain, responsible purchasing practices, and their role in supplier management to prevent the risk of forced labor. Moreover, in 2023, aligning with international expectation to strengthen human rights due diligence in the downstream supply chain, we offered training for due diligence managers from five EU sales subsidiaries. The training focused on how we respect the labor and human rights of all stakeholders including customers, subcontractors, and business partners, as well as everyone at our sales subsidiaries. Emphasizing our commitment to respecting human rights, the training covers how we conduct human rights due diligence and case studies on human rights violation related to sales in the electronics industry.
At our global business sites, we train designated human rights champions to integrate human rights into their business activities. About 50 human rights champions who are from human resources, labor relations, compliance, and training serve as human rights trainers in their respective subsidiaries. Human rights champions identify potential human rights risks that may arise in their business sites, interact with other human rights champions from other subsidiaries, and advise each other on their activities. In 2023, they received comprehensive training from global human rights experts on Samsung Electronics’ new Global Human Rights Principles and Practice Guide of Global Human Rights Principles, stakeholder communication and engagement, and more.