Protecting human rights in the AbbVie workplace

We protect the rights, safety and dignity of every person at AbbVie.

We take seriously our responsibility to protect and uphold fundamental human rights. We respect individual rights as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We support the key tenets of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and we reflect these precepts in our organization's fundamental principles, as well as in our mission to address serious health challenges and the unmet needs of society. We recognize our responsibility as an ethical employer to do all we can to prevent, mitigate and remedy any adverse human rights impacts across our business and value chain.

We view our responsibility to respect, protect and fulfill the human rights of our people as core to our integrity and our operations. We contribute to the realization of human rights through our policies on employment, ethics and procurement. AbbVie does not tolerate human rights abuses. Our practices and programs not only ensure compliance with laws and regulations wherever we have operations, but also address any workplace concerns raised by employees. We expect all AbbVie employees, contractors, subsidiaries, suppliers and business partners to abide by this commitment.

One of our cornerstone commitments is ensuring the safety of our employees across our workplaces. “Zero. Believe It. Achieve It.” is our guiding philosophy— reflecting the belief that every environmental, health and safety incident is preventable if each of us adopts a preventative mindset. This philosophy grounds our comprehensive, tailored workplace safety training for all employees.

And we’ve seen results. Since our launch as an independent company, we have been a Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) leader in occupational health and safety across the biotechnology industry. Our recordable incident rate and lost time incident rate are among the lowest in the industry, based on data from the Pharmaceutical Safety Group, an industry consortium.

We demonstrate our commitment to human rights and workplace safety with the following initiatives:

The STOP Program for Frontline Supervision—a safety training observation program designed to reduce workplace injuries and illnesses through training, peer-to-peer support and coaching. This program aligns with our culture of risk anticipation and is intended to improve our detection and elimination of EHS incidents.
We provide training to employees on anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies and practices—all of which apply to every employee, applicant, vendor, customer, client and any third party engaged in business with AbbVie.
We offer a number of resources such as our confidential Ethics and Compliance Helpline—a telephone- and web-based hotline maintained by a third party for the purpose of gathering information about any compliance and ethics concerns.
Employees also have a direct line to our Office of Ethics and Compliance or the Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer at their disposal.

Bringing AbbVie’s Principles to life through with Michael Mendoza, manager, environmental health & safety, construction safety.

Read the interview

.20

Lost time injuries frequency rate (per million hours worked) in 2020

.14

Recordable incident rate (per 200,000 hours worked) in 2020

650

Number of supervisors who have received training globally

#1

Since our launch as an independent company, we have been the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) leader in occupational health and safety across the biotechnology industry.