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 reflects our commitment 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 covers our salient human rights risks, and is applied to our stakeholders, employees, suppliers, and business partners.
Samsung Electronics conducts annual human rights training for employees 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. As a next step, we worked with internal experts to further develop the training program to include general employees, employees assigned to human rights duties, and human rights champions.
We conduct annual employee human rights training at global business sites, which include production, sales and research centers. Office-based workers receive online training, while employees at production sites are trained offline in the relevant local languages featuring localized examples. In 2024, 95.7% of our employees completed the training, with the completion rate for online and offline training at 93.4% and 98.8%, respectively.
Human rights training for employees assigned to human rights duties was first introduced in 2021 for staff in Human Resources, General Affairs, and Purchasing. Since then, it has become a regular annual program for Purchasing managers and employees worldwide. This program covers the definition of business practices that respect human rights, international human rights standards, the importance of human rights in business activities, human rights issues within Samsung Electronics, and the role of purchasing employees.
Moreover, aligning with international expectation to strengthen human rights due diligence in the downstream supply chain, we offer training for due diligence managers at our overseas production and sales sites and research centers as part of our Global Human Rights Risk Assessment. Building on the training provided in 2023 for due diligence staff from five EU sales subsidiaries, we expanded the program in 2024 to include due diligence managers who are responsible for assessing and managing human rights risks at local levels. The training covered various topics including the concept of human rights, international human rights standards, legislative efforts relating corporate responsibility for human rights in different countries, and our commitment to respecting human rights. It also covered our human rights due diligence framework, salient human rights risks, and risk mitigation strategies.
Human rights training for human rights champions has been conducted since 2020 with the goal of integrating human rights into each subsidiary’s business activities. About 60 human rights champions from global sites also serve as human rights trainers in their respective subsidiaries in the field of HR, labor relations, compliance, and training. They 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 2024, they received advanced training from internal human rights experts. The training covered various topics such as legislative efforts related to corporate responsibility to respect human rights in different countries, our new Global Grievance Resolution Policy, freedom of association, and the right to collective bargaining.