OBO United Arab Emirates
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Social responsibility

Social responsibility

We’d like to shape society now and in the future – both regionally at our locations and also around the world. We not only manage this today with our products and our digital service tools, but also through our wide-ranging social commitments. As a company, we promote numerous social projects and initiatives around the world along with our employees.

Diversity

 

We live variety and the differences between our employees are one of our strengths. Their different competencies, perspectives and experience all form the basis for innovation and further development. This helps us to understand the requirements of our customers around the world. Respect, tolerance and solidarity are the hallmarks of our corporate culture.

Further development


Every day, every single OBO employee bears responsibility for the success of our corporation. We are fully aware of the value of this, and it is just one of the reasons that we offer developmental and further training opportunities to our trainees. Under the umbrella of theOBO Academy,OBO employees can find a comprehensive range of training opportunities, which are offered across a wide range of different sectors. Our hope is that each individual is able to develop. The imparting of technical knowledge and methodology, along with personal and intercultural competencies, is guaranteed through the interaction with our colleagues, selected providers and experts. We regularly offer internal and external seminars for business and personal development. They can be attended by any employee and can be booked online.

OBO Styles

Here, trainees have the possibility of running their own company during their own training. The trainee company OBO Styles was founded in 2006 with the motto “A different kind of training”. The aim was to make training as practical as possible. At OBO, commercial and industrial trainees plan and organise processes together, meaning that they can take responsibility for their own company. The products they develop are then sold within the company. The concept also convinced the jury of “Innovationspreis Sauerland”, for which OBO Styles was awarded a prize for “innovative corporate concepts in the field of training and further training” in 2008.
 

Taking responsibility from the idea through to marketing

Through OBO Styles, the trainees find out what is really behind a product. From the basic idea, through production, and on to marketing – they take full responsibility. This stimulates the willingness to communicate and cooperation between trainees.

In addition, further competencies of the trainees are demanded and promoted. These include the strengthening of social competence, sufficient willingness to cooperate and learn, and the willingness to take decisions.

Health and safety

Fair Company

The Fair Company Initiative is Germany’s largest employer initiative, which is dedicated to a sustainable, fair working environment. It is targeted at those starting careers and young professionals.

The initiative honours companies that offer young people fair, attractive working conditions and who promote their development.

OBO has received numerous awards as a Fair Company. We are very pleased to have received such certifications as recognition of our working conditions and development opportunities for young job starters. This is how we were able to qualify for the certification as a Fair Company:

  • With fair conditions for students and job starters
  • By presenting a good, successful path into working life
  • By creating a high-quality training environment for new employees.

The title of Fair Company is awarded by the economic magazine Handelsblatt, in cooperation with Institut für Beschäftigung und Employability (IBE) as a scientific partner.

A survey developed specifically for the Fair Company Initiative assesses criteria such as work organisation, along with cooperation and management, corporate culture and values, commitment to co-workers, diversity and equal opportunities, fair behaviour on the marketplace, social responsibility and sustainability. The test has been passed when all the criteria have been fulfilled: As a Fair Company, the company offers particularly attractive conditions for starting careers – as OBO does.

Healthy with OBO

The health of our employees is of great importance to us. This is why we place great emphasis on safety precautions, a comprehensive health programme and a flexible work-life balance. We do everything to protect our employees against not only accidents, but also workplace illness. Subjects such as stress prevention, nutrition, movement and preventative measures are at the heart of this. We employ preventive methods, which can be integrated easily into everyday work patterns and which help to avoid health problems.

Our programme concerning the health of our employees includes, for example:

  • Medical support and advice at the workplace through our Works Council
  • Preventive medical examinations
  • Free flu jabs
  • Ergonomic workplace analysis
  • Personal protective equipment, adapted to the workplace conditions

Promotion of art and culture

The promotion of art and culture is a further component of OBO’s social commitment. For example, OBO sponsored and supported the “Dear Imaginary Audience” art installation of the New York artists Eva and Franco Mattes. In their installation “Personal Photographs”, the two artists made the OBO RKS Magic cable trays into modern art. The installation has already been exhibited in exhibitions in Los Angeles, Montreal, Milan, Berlin and Zurich. OBO supplied the necessary RKS-Magic cable trays and other installation materials available free of charge.

The artists Eva and Franco Mattes have, since the mid-1990s, investigated the effects of the Internet on our lives and, in their work, reflect how networked images increasingly define our private and social behaviour. In their installation, the OBO cable trays materialise the circulation of networked images by snaking through the exhibition space, turning the otherwise abstract flow of information into a physical experience.

In the summer of 2023, the cooperation was continued through an exhibition by Eva and Franco Mattes at the Frankfurt Art Association. Highlights included an outdoor sculpture on the facade and an installation in the interior rooms of the art association.

Donations and promotion activities

OBO as a company, along with its employees, promotes numerous social projects and initiatives around the world. This includes the Christoph Bettermann schools in Uganda, which provide children with physical and mental disabilities with access to education, supporting the SOS Children’s Village Ben Tre in Vietnam, equipping the Diospi Suyana mission hospital in Peru with electrical infrastructure to secure medical care and supporting an aid project that converted buses into mobile warm rooms for the civilian population of Ukraine.

For decades, a key interest of ours has been supporting the Pető Institute in Hungary. Pető therapy was developed by the Hungarian physical educator and medical gymnastics expert Prof. Andras Pető for the treatment of cerebral movement problems. The aim is to give physically disabled people as much independence from aids and helpers in everyday life.

We also promote movement through wide-ranging sports sponsoring – whether at the top level by sponsoring the Terra Wortmann Open in Halle, the Balve Optimum equestrian tournament and the partnership with BVB, or by sponsoring regional sports clubs near our different OBO locations.

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