and managers, so they need to
be flexible and prepared to take
on new challenges. Job security
and entrepreneurial flexibility go
hand in hand,” said Dr. Wolfgang Hapke,
President, Human Resources at BASF.
Research and development play a
particularly important role in maintaining the site’s innovative strength,
which is why R&D expenditures will be
maintained at the high level of previous
years. Ludwigshafen will remain BASF’s
most important research and development site.
Demographic change is one of the
great challenges facing BASF SE. By
2020, one in two employees at the
Ludwigshafen site will be older than 50.
From 2018, the number of employees
retiring will start to increase sharply. In
order to ensure that BASF can meet its
demand for skilled labor, the company
will continue to offer vocational training as well as additional and flexible
qualification programs on a comparable
level as in the past.
“Managers play a significant role in
meeting the coming challenges. Only
when we as managers lead and actively
help to shape the change is it possible
to convince employees that the changes bring opportunities,” said Rainer
Nachtrab, chair of the committee representing senior managers at BASF SE.
The ongoing initiatives at the
Ludwigshafen site – such as the
Learning Center as well as both general
and target-group-specific learning of-
ferings – provide a strong basis to sup-
port employees in self-directed learning
throughout their entire working lives.
Effective knowledge transfer will also
be a focus in the coming years.
Given that working lives are getting
longer, maintaining and promoting
health is another important topic and
responsibility shared by both the company and employees. To this end, BASF
SE has launched numerous initiatives,
including programs to help employees return to work after a longer absence, occupational medical services
and the establishment of the Work-Life
Management center in Ludwigshafen
(“LuMit”), and will continue to further develop these initiatives.
DuPont Establishes New
Innovation and Business
Hub in Singapore
DuPont has announced that it will establish a new innovation and business headquarters in Singapore. The
11,000-square-meter facility will open in
2016 and house nearly 200 scientists, engineers and business leaders. Drawing on
DuPont’s leading position in Agriculture
& Nutrition, Advanced Materials and
Bio-based Industrials, the new DuPont
Singapore ASEAN headquarters will focus on delivering new innovations tailored to meet the unique needs of the
ASEAN marketplace.
“DuPont’s powerful innovation pipe-
line is driven by our unique combina-
tion of science and engineering, strong
execution and global reach. The DuPont
Singapore ASEAN headquarters will
bring us closer than ever to our ASEAN
customers so that together we can more
quickly develop and deliver innovative
solutions for the region and the world,”
said DuPont Senior Vice President and
Chief Science & Technology Officer
Douglas Muzyka.
“We are pleased that DuPont has cho-
sen Singapore as the base from which to
partner and support their customers in
ASEAN and beyond,” said Cindy Koh,
director, Energy & Chemicals, Singapore
Economic Development Board. “DuPont
will be able to leverage the inter-disciplin-
ary research capabilities in the publicly
funded research institutes and universi-
ties in Singapore to innovate new prod-
ucts and solutions to meet the needs of
an increasingly sophisticated ASEAN.
The DuPont Singapore facility also will
create exciting job opportunities for
Singaporeans, which enables them to be
at the forefront of science.”
ASEAN is an increasingly impor-
tant economic region for DuPont that
has delivered consistent growth for the
company. With more than 620 million
people, and with a rapidly rising middle
class, the region is home to a rapidly ex-
panding knowledge base. “Singapore is
an ideal location for the DuPont ASEAN
headquarters because of its close proxim-
ity to our ASEAN customers, the region’s
diverse talent pool, and policies that
stimulate collaboration and innovation,”
said DuPont ASEAN Group Managing
Director Hsing Ho.
DuPont is present in eight ASEAN
countries and has operated in Singapore
since 1973. With the establishment of
this new ASEAN business and R&D
headquarters, DuPont’s total workforce
