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Company culture

AIDA values

Our corporate culture is based on four deeply enshrined core values: our AIDA values. They are mutual trust, a passion for the AIDA product, respect for one another, and the diversity of our staff. Our AIDA values express the principles condoned by AIDA, they show how our AIDA employees live and work together and how we successfully put our vision and strategy into practice.

Values need to be embodied. In order for us to keep them firmly instilled, they are going to be integrated into existing tools and regularly measured. The following measures were either implemented in 2015 to facilitate the active realization of our values or have already been part of our company culture for a long time:

Executive workshops & trainings

Values flourish when they are put into practice – both by executives setting a good example and by all employees during their everyday professional lives. This is why our AIDA values are a crucial component of all executive workshops and trainings both on board our ships and on shore. Especially our executive staff are trained in value-oriented approaches to leadership and stress management in their professional lives. We motivate them to entrench these values deeply in their teams by observing their own function as a role model.

Training manager on board the AIDA ships

A total of ten training managers are currently working on board our fleet to offer even more opportunities for further education to our employees at sea. The portfolios of these training managers include service and sales training, leadership and soft-skill seminars and language courses in German and English. This program has been set up in response to a desire expressed by the crew to improve their language skills and expand their expertise.

Employee awards

The “Seniority Award” is an expression of our respect and appreciation for the work of our long-standing staff aboard the AIDA cruise ships and a way of thanking them for their loyalty and commitment. Every month, the “Employee of the Month award” is given to one member of staff who has displayed outstanding performance. In addition, the “Ship of the Year Award” is awarded in three categories once a year to distinguish the entire crew of a ship for their excellent work in the fields of HESS (Health, Environment, Safety Security), RAAS (Risk Advisory & Assurance Services) and customer satisfaction. Since 2015, AIDA employees on board and on shore have had access to the AIDA Intranet, an innovative information and communication platform whose success is crucially dependent on the commitment of our editorial staff. To honor their work, we are awarding the “Intranet Award” to particularly committed editors every month.

AIDA Intranet

Open communications and transparency are important factors in keeping our employees informed and motivated. In 2015, we introduced the new AIDA Intranet: an innovative digital platform for internal communications, which allows our employees on board and on shore to access the latest information about AIDA and its projects and individual departments along with first-hand news from our ships. It can also be accessed via private mobile devices, which is particularly useful for our on-board staff. The new AIDA Intranet promotes not only the exchange of information, but also the cooperation between different departments and an inter-departmental approach among our staff. Te resulting increased transparency contributes to the mutual respect among our departments and colleagues, as we give our employees a platform for presenting their large and small projects and initiatives. Another important section of our new Intranet is “AIDA4me.” Here, we provide our employees with information about our vocational training and further education programs and help them with the topics of career planning and development. AIDA Cruises encourages its employees to strike a healthy balance between their demanding careers and their private lives by spending relaxing time with the family and recuperating during leisure activities. AIDA4me offers our employees comprehensive information about our childcare offers, health and well-being services and other attractive benefits.

Code of Business Conduct and Ethics

All AIDA employees are thoroughly educated on the code of business conducts and ethics. AIDA employees can take the training at any time and in any place, whether on board or on land, as part of a modern E-learning training program. The training content includes such topics as the behavior and ethics codex, anti-corruption, antitrust, insider trading and how to deal with employee complaints. Nearly 100 percent of our employees successfully completed this training in 2015. All employees have to renew their certificates every two years.

We expect not only our employees, but also our business and agency partners, to share and support our professional ethics without limitations. The principles defined in our Business Partner Code of Conduct and Ethics function as a guideline for our joint business activities.

UNWTO Tourism Code

AIDA signed the World Tourism Organization’s (UNWTO) Global Code of Ethics for Tourism as early as 2012. We have thus committed to a responsible, sustainable approach to tourism. As a signatory of the code, AIDA Cruises regularly accounts to UNWTO regarding the compliance with and further development of its measures to promote sustainable tourism.

Commitment to diversity

WE ARE COLORFUL. This is one of the values we live on a daily basis – both on board and on shore. In the broad sense, COLORFUL stands for diversity. AIDA could never be as successful as it is without this diversity.

We have an open outlook on the world, are highly committed to quality, and are completely convinced that diverse cultural influences enrich our lives. Learning from one another is not something to which AIDA merely pays lip service. Instead, it is a fixed element of our corporate culture. As a multinational company with employees from more than 40 nations, diversity is a natural part of our working lives – and a tremendous enrichment. We have therefore also signed the "Charta der Vielfalt" (Diversity Charter) initiative. By endorsing this initiative, we expressly commit to respecting all employees – regardless of gender, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, world view or age. Furthermore, we respect the cultural characteristics of our colleagues from other countries and consider their needs.

Fair Company

In accordance with our AIDA Values, we embody a working atmosphere of mutual respect regardless of age, origin and hierarchy. We have joined the “Fair Company” initiative from karriere.de, because fairness in respect to interns, trainees and college graduates is a matter of course to us. We have held the “Fair Company” seal of quality since 2010.

If an employee notices any type of unfair treatment, the employee can take the matter to his/her manager, the workers' representation committee or a trusted person. Our human resources manager, who is part of the works council aboard our ships, supports on-board HR work and provides consultancy for issues concerning labor law. Our response to discrimination is clearly governed by our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics. The specialist departments and human resources are immediately informed about any cases of discrimination. We diligently investigate all reported events and, if necessary, take labor law-related measures as part of our zero-tolerance policy. No cases of discrimination were reported by the CFO in 2015.