Living Our Values

Building on past values training, we focused on the integration of these values into enhanced business performance in 2007. For example, our Korean affiliate developed a program, Pride, to attract and retain talent, as well as foster a culture of community service and citizenship. In part, Pride is intended to help Abbott Korea achieve recognition as a one of the country's best employers.

In Campoverde, Italy, our affiliate interpreted and integrated values into a quality assurance program in our manufacturing operations. Efforts are underway in Abbott affiliates in Mexico, Venezuela, Japan and other countries to underscore how these values impact our culture and guide our decision-making.

Values-Based Culture

Four core values define our company: Pioneering, Achieving, Caring and Enduring. They guide our decisions and actions, and provide a framework for how we communicate and interact with all of our stakeholders. These values were identified as those most important to Abbott through extensive research among our key constituents – customers, employees, patients, caregivers and health care professionals – as well as a close examination of our long heritage and the strengths that have made our company what it is today. We communicate those ideas in a statement of purpose we call the Abbott Promise for Life, which describes what we believe in, what we value and what we strive to deliver in our day-to-day work. It also sets expectations for employees and for others who interact with our company.

We continually work to align our organization and daily activities around the values and the Abbott Promise. Over the past two years, we have engaged employees globally through a series of values workshops and educational tools. These workshops and tools are designed to encourage behaviors that reflect our values. Identifying opportunities and addressing obstacles while promoting process improvements have resulted in further integrating our promise and values throughout the organization. Some highlights of these activities include the following:

• Our international pharmaceutical organization, comprising approximately 14,000 employees, included values as part of their 2007 performance goals.
• Caring is central to work we do, and globally teams have reached out in their local communities to touch lives of those in need. In the UK a cross-divisional team event encompassing over 220 employees, worked as Abbott ambassadors in their local communities, this benefited 22 organizations across the UK. Employees reached out in a variety of ways such as: revamping hospital gardens, cleaning up community parks and several schools, and enhancing accesses for disabled people in areas that were difficult to navigate.
• In Greece the Humira Team completed a renovation of a kindergarten classroom. This village has a rather low economic profile, which does not allow for the building maintenance. This "facelift" was a real morale booster for the children, faculty and parents.
• Engagement of key audiences was undertaken to establish a baseline measurement of our corporate reputation. Results of these studies and others that are ongoing help Abbott develop strategic action plans to address gaps between perceptions and key reputation drivers.
• An online interactive tool was developed by the Global Pharmaceutical Organization to allow values training throughout their organization. This has been well received by our employees who work in manufacturing at various global locations.

Decision Making Among Our Leaders

We continued to update our core leadership training programs, with a focus on supporting employees at key transition points during their careers. As part of the process, we developed training modules on how to incorporate the Abbott values into daily activities. The curriculum in this area addresses a number of core issues identified in the values workshops with Abbott management, including balanced risk taking, approaches to minimizing bureaucracy, and developing more long-term strategic thinking, increased collaboration and cross-divisional focus to better serve stakeholders.

Understanding our values helps employees make the best choices to create positive experiences for our stakeholders and, ultimately, leads to positive perceptions of our company. In 2007 we developed tools to create opportunities for values learning with additional training programs, including our new employee orientation and onboarding process that will be integrated into key applications in 2008.

Abbott's values integration is reinforced in specific leadership programs taught by members of senior management, including: Abbott Executive Compass for newly appointed executives; Global Leader Program for newly appointed or soon-to-be-appointed international general managers; Operations Leadership Summit for key leaders in quality assurance, manufacturing, supply chain and regulatory affairs; Leadership Development for Scientists Program for senior scientists with leadership potential. Values training is also included in our Abbott New Leader program, a core foundational program for all Abbott leaders.