A shining example of corporate commitment

Dortmund. As part of its own duty of care, the Wilo Group is offering all employees at its German sites the opportunity to take free voluntary coronavirus self-tests. With this initiative, as well as caring for the health of its employees, the technology specialist is also making an important contribution to society as a whole. “With our self-test campaign, we’ve deliberately gone a step beyond the official requirements. In particular, Wilo is helping ensure that system-relevant sectors and critical infrastructures stay up and running”, explains Oliver Hermes, President and CEO of the Wilo Group.

The self-test arrangements were planned in detail weeks in advance. “We proactively procured self-test kits for our workforce and came up with the necessary procedures in advance,” explains Dr Georg Fölting, Head of Group Campus Management, who is responsible for implementing the measure. At the Wilopark on the Dortmund site, a large area of one bay in the production facilities was freed up to create a test centre with 30 stations, allowing approximately 2,000 employees to be tested. Using software developed by the company’s own IT department, clear and unambiguous test results can be given after around 15 minutes. “We’ll carry out a total of 2,000 tests by the end of this week, meaning most of our staff will then have been tested for the third time. And all this without sacrificing productivity”, says Dr Fölting.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Wilo Group has implemented a variety of comprehensive hygiene and safety measures, such as the use of KINEXON SafeTags to maintain distancing in production using audiovisual signals, as well as simplified contact tracing. In addition to this, Wilo has offered the option of remote working for many years now. During the Covid pandemic, employees are strongly and unequivocally encouraged to take up this offer. Accordingly, around 90 % of sales and administrative staff, for example, are currently working from home.

“What’s more, we already have ready-made plans with our company physicians for how we could fully vaccinate the entire Wilo workforce in the quickest possible way. This would allow us to combine our existing test infrastructure with vaccine infrastructure without any issues. However, for this to happen, first of all, the licences for company physicians must be extended, and the vaccines have to be available,” explains Oliver Hermes.

The self-test arrangements developed by Wilo’s “Go-Ahead Task Force” in Dortmund can fundamentally be regarded as a blueprint that can then be adapted and implemented accordingly at Wilo sites all over the world.